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I 



OLD-TIME PICTURES 



SHEAVES OF RHYME 



BY 




Author of "January and June," "Life and Scenes in the Army," etc. 













CHICAGO: 
S. C. GRIGGS & COMPANY 

1874. 



in 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

S. C. GRIGGS & COMPANY, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



MM 

« ^P '****» *, 

/fiUSl/SHING A PRINTING CO./ 







t^^^-e- 








So°dJ. 



TO HER FOR WHOM TWENTY YEARS HAVE NOT OIMMED THE 

MEMORY OF THAT LONG-GONE DAY, THIS 

LITTLE BOOK IS 

iHost aflfccttoiutcln Enscritirti. 



PREFACE. 



Set adrift in the newspapers, like thistle-down in 
the Fall wind, a few poems of mine have " lodged " at 
last between the lids of a book. 

Never thinking seriously about it until it was too 
late to think at all, I find myself fearing that their 
meaning to me is a sort of personal property I cannot 
make over to anybody, and that I should have slipped 
them in among the leaves of the Family Record, be- 
tween the book of Malachi and the Gospel according 
to St. Matthew, as being the very place in a world of 
sinners about the safest from perusal. 

A friend once sent me some withered pansies, but 
he brightened and humanized the faded things by 
writinG; a single line: "From the £rave of Hamlet. 



10 PREFA CE. 

Prince of Denmark." Ah, how beautiful they turned, 
and what treasures they became ! 

Less fortunate than the pansies, this sheaf of rhymes 
has nobody to write the single line. Only this : I sus- 
pect one or two of them of being better than I once 
thought, because several clever people have stolen and 
never returned them. 



THE SHEAF 



i'AGK. 

\.\ Old-Time Picture - - - - - - - [3 

The Child and the Star ------ 3s 

rHANKSGIVING -------- 52 

A Poet's Legacy 56 

Tin: Song of the Age- - - 61 

June -------- . 63 

October ---------- 74 

Tornado Sunday -------- 78 

The Skylark --------- 82 

Bunker Hill --------- 37 

The Old Village Choir ----- 3y 

Going Home - - - - - - - - -92 

The Dead Grenadier - 97 

Rhymes oe the Riyer - - 102 

Lazy ---------- 100 

Dearborn Observatory - - 112 

Jenny Jim.- - - - - - - - 115 

Burns' Century Song - - - - 118 

The Colored Marble - - 122 

Flowers .-_.-- - 123 



12 THE SHEAF. 

PAGE. 

The New Craft in the Offing - - - - - 124 

The Vane on the Spire - - - - - - 127 

Decoration Day ------ - 13 2 

A Winter Psalm - - - - - - - - x 35 

Sailing of Columbus ------- 141 

The Chrysalis _..----- 14 2 

The Flag ----- I43 

The Hero of New Hamburg - ... 144 

The Gospel of the Oak - - - - - - I 5 I 

The Two Johns -------- 154 

Beautiful " May " - - - - - - - - 15 8 

The Northern Lights - - - - - L - 160 

Indian Summer - - - - - - - - 161 

The Shattered Rainbow - - - - - - l62 

Fire and Water - - - - - - - 163 

"Atlantic" - - - - - - - " l6 ? 

Cavalry Charge - - ----- 174 

Fort Dearborn - - *7 6 

The Isle of the Long Ago ... - 188 
The Rose and the Robin - 1 9 1 



AN OLD- TIME PICTURE. 



JULY 4TH. I776 — JULY 4111. 1873. 

ET us roll back the world on its axle of fire. 
-■ — ' Let us halt, if we can, just a breath or two 

nigher 
The sweet simple time when they halved every 

trouble, 
Ere pinks were carnations and roses all double ! 

We will watch for a roof with a slope down behind. 
Like a sun -bonnet blown partly off by the wind. 
Till the tresses of brown turn to gold one by one. 
As they shake out of shadow and shine in the sun — 

For a chimney as broad as the curb of a well 
Where the ember-red maple leaves eddied and fell, 
That volcanic plumed up with its volumes of smoke 
That were crimson and gold when day brightened 
and broke : — 

13 



14 AN OLD- TIME PICTURE. 

For a neighborly porch with the brow of a Greek 
That will make you as welcome as if it could speak, 
With a vine that runs up like a creature alive, 
And as brisk as a bee that is bound from the hive 
It goes rambling about with inquisitive leaves, 
And then swings in a frolic along the low eaves ; — 

For a rusty-gray curb, round a rugged stone well, 
Where with dangle of bucket the sweep rose and 

fell 
O'er the disc of still water, a silent black eye 
That unsleeping, unwinking, is watching the sky ; 
Now a star shines along, drops a beam down below, 
Now a drift of noon cloud sheds a fleck of its 

snow, 
Now a shadowy face smiling up to the brink 
Where a girl smiling down has forgotten to drink ; — 

For the hives of a fashion quaint, classic, and old, 
Where the bees went and came with their burdens 

of gold — 
'T was an African village of straw- woven cones 
Within humming range of those myrtle-draped 

stones, 



IX OLD- TIME PICTURE 



L5 



Of two borders of pinks, Sweet Williams and 

bhyme, 
That led out to the gate like a couplet in rhyme. — 
Of the pseony's glow and the prince's own feather — 
Of the four - o'clocks timing the dullest of weather, 
Of the meek little asters, Earth's studies for stars, 
And the love -lies -a -bleeding there close by the 

bars, — 
< ) i the languid white poppy the dream - angels keep, 
With its quaint -covered cup of the powder of 

sleep, 
And sunflower and hollyhock, stately and tall, 
And the cluster of lilacs beside the gray wall, 
And the daffodils, columbines, roses, and all 
That were kindred of Eve's without sinning at 

all : — 



For the flinty old fields where the vicious -edged 

hoe 
Always struck out a weed and a spark at a blow ; — 
For the pastures where mulleins and butter - cups 

grew, 
And the white -legged sheep gnawed the summer 

."11 through : — 



16 AN OLD - TIME PICTURE. 

For a fringe of deep woods with a sugar - camp in it, 
And the memories sweet as the song of a linnet ; 
And the drum of the partridge can summon my 

soul, 
Like the drum of a drummer -boy beating the roll ; 
Ah, the thought of the " red -bird's " small flicker 

of fire 
Can yet startle my pulses and kindle desire, — 
And the green, plashy place where the slim rushes 

grew, 
And the pendulum reeds, when the summer winds 

blew, 
Set the bird with an epaulette swaying and swinging 
'Till the bobolink's bells fell to rocking and ringing ! 
Ah, the fire of the camp as it threaded the trees, 
And the smoke like a canopy swung by the breeze, 
And the young moons of April and young girls of 

old, 
How they flock to the heart like the lambs to the 

fold ; 
Ah, the dainty white flowers with their feet in the 

loam, 
And as clean as an angel a minute from home ! — 



AiV OLD-TIME PICTURE. 



17 



For the strawberry meadow so haunted with bees, 
Where the boys and the girls crept about on their 

knees 
And became — of each other — devout devotees ; 
Where the monarchs of twilight for ages had stood 
And pronounced benediction with branches abroad, 
Hark, the stroke of an axe like the tick of a clock : 
There 's a burst of broad sunshine, a crushing of 

flowers ; 
Hark, the crash of the giants with shiver and shock : 
There 's the chime of the wilderness striking the 

hours ! 
Lo, their monuments here that the mowers mow 

round 
With a glint of the scythes that are rasping the 

ground ; — 



For the quilt of a field where the cradlers went in. 
And their free swinging sweep seemed as easy as 

sin ; 
On the skeleton fingers the grain was laid down 
Like the Babes in the Wood, far away from the 

town. 



18 AN OLD-TIME PICTURE. 

And the rakers and binders came rollicking after. 
With their heads thatched with straw and their 

hearts full of laughter — 
And perhaps the old farmer of Pomfret is one, 
With a ring to his jokes like the flash of his gun ; 
And perhaps Molly Stark shades her eyes with 

her hand, 
As she watches the boys that are sweeping the 

land ; — 

For a sky-line that rises and falls like the deep, 
Lies as light on the hills with its tremulous sweep 
As a mantle of blue on an infant asleep ! 

And the watch is all over — the picture is given, 
And the scene is ringed in with a scollop of heaven. 

The wide door on the latch opening full to the 

south 
Is as sweet as the smile of an eloquent mouth. 
When you swing on its hinges that neighborly door 
A broad carpet of sunshine unrolls on the floor, 
And a bee and a butterfly, freed from the fold — 
And they must have been in it before it was rolled — 



AN OLD-TIME PICTURE. 



19 



Like two figures escaped from a tapestry loom, 
Are just drifting about in the rambling old room. 

There 's a touch of green caraway charming the air, 
There 's a low, loving ceiling, with a hook here 

and there, 
Whence festoons of dried apples and pumpkins 

have hung 
That the " bees " in checked aprons had quartered 

and strung ; 
There 's a spotless white table, a broad open palm, 
That has grown with the mouths like the swell of 

a psalm — 
'T is a small hand of Providence, laden and spread, 
That has answered the prayer of three ages for 

bread ! 

There 's a thrush on the linden, a goldfinch adrift, 

And a lark going up on a musical lift ; 

There "s a girl in the garden, a " fellow " to love 

her, 
And a robin in song in the maple above her ; 
There 's a tin horn in tether adorning the wall, 
And its twang, sharp and nasal, is sweeter than all ! 



20 AN OLD- TIME PICTURE. 

There 's a box on the window - sill, awkward and 

square, 
" Live - fore ver " defiant is clustering there : 
Ah, the true " live - forevers " are haunting the 

place, 
And are thronging my soul with ineffable grace. 

Let us rummage the drawers and the desolate 

"till" 
For the snowy white cap, like a lily in frill, 
And the string of gold dew - drops that beaded a 

neck, 
And a bit of a dress in the blue and white check, 
And the scolloped vandyke that the grandmothers 

wore, 
And the short -gown and petticoat never seen more, 
And the green silk calash, like the top of a chaise, 
They could throw back at will in the dull, cloudy 

days 
And then lift it again when the sky was a -blaze ; 
And the faded red " sampler," the work of Jane 

Ann, — 
You can see with your heart how the alphabet ran — 



4N OLD- 77. ME PIC Tl r RE. 



21 



And the year and "her year : 



. /' 



3 7, — <i tie- &/>e u t ■ 



'/; 



And .no older to-day, for she went young to 
Heaven ! 



The old room has grown human in all the long 

years — 
Has been brightened by happiness, hallowed by 

tears ; 
By the brides on the hearth who will bless it no 

more, 
By the cradles kept rocking like boats on the shore. 
And that old-fashioned hearth with a flare to the 

jamb, 
And a throat full of midnight to swallow the flame, 
And a crane, like a witch's long slender black 

tongue, 
In the yawn of red fire horizontally swung ; 
And a brace of tough fire-dogs, their feet in the 

coals. 
Looking out from beneath the broad volume that 

rolls 
Like the burst of a sunset in gflory and gold, 
That the touch of no Titian could ever have told. 



22 AN OLD - TIME PICTURE. 

Ah, the Arctic old hearts are alive that remember 
All that splendor of fire in the perished December, 
And the flicker and flash of the musketry rattle 
When the hemlock and birch blazed away in sham 

battle, 
And the sturdier glow of the hickory bank, 
Reinforced with rock - maple in front and in flank, 
When the surges rolled up and the rubies dropped 

down 
Like the gems that are struck from a conquered 

king's crown, 
Till the rush -bottomed chairs falling back in good 

order, 
As the leaves flush apart in a wild rose's border, 
All around the horizon the cider and song, 
And the Baldwins and Greenings went circling 

along, 
And the touching of hands and the whisper aside, 
All the charms that survived it when Paradise died ! 
With the thought of that ingleside Eden is near, 
Long deserted and cozy old corners of cheer ! 

See the jambs worn away by the shovel and tongs, 
As the marble at Mecca was kissed by the throngs 



AN OLD-TIME PICTURE 



23 



That just pressed their live lips to the lips of the 

stone 
'Till marble with mortal had blended and gone. 
Ah, those long iron fingers to handle the fire 
Were not made by the maker of Amphion's lyre, 
But the sturdy old smith at the forks of the road 
Smote them out of the bar as it sparkled and 

glowed, 
Like the besom of Lucifer flourished the brand 
'Till he swept out the dark with his angry right 

hand, — 
And the kiss of the sledges fell fiercely and fast, 
And the fingers were fashioned and finished at last ; 
With a sigh of relief they were plunged in the 

water, 
And the tongs were baptized rough Vulcan's rude 

daughter. 
Ah, the print of his hammer is plainer to-day 
Than his name that they graved on a tablet of gray ! 



There 's the ghost of a clock, with its body all gone, 
Where it stood in a corner so ghastly and wan. 
With a pallor of face that so haunted the wall 
You felt like enshrouding the shape in a pall. 



24 AN OLD- TIME PICTURE. 

It was wound with a string, and its shadowy beat 
Fell a faint and deliberate vision of feet. 
How it marched through the night with an echo- 
less tread, 
Like unshrived and unshodden impenitent dead ! 

On the mantel two candlesticks, iron and old, 
That have lifted their glimmer long winters untold. 
Ah, the slender white shafts, with their finish of 

flame, 
That were lighted by those that old monuments 

name, 
And the snuffers served up on a salver of tin, 
When the crickets came out and the neighbors 

came in ! 

On the wall hangs the almanac, ledger of time, — 
At the tail of each page is a ringlet of rhyme, 
At the top is the sun, with a flare to his hair, 
And the moon, from the shield to the sickle, is 

there, 
And along the brief column's zodiacal blaze 
Is the roll of the age's battalion of days 



AN OLD- TIME PICTURE. 



25 



On the stand lies the Bible, that Day - Book so broad 
It embodies the reckoning of mortals with God. 
When the last of fourteen — just the lines in a son- 
net ! — 
Is first seated at table, a twenty -pound man, 
They just swing down the Book and enthrone him 

upon it, 
And it brings him in range with the platter and 

pan. 
On its cover the razor is cautiously strapped, 
And within it the route of old Moses is mapped, 
With the noblest of Sermons and sweetest of 

Psalms, 
And the greenest of cedars and grandest of palms, 
While Saint Matthew and Malachi guard the old 

story 
Of the son that was born and the sire gone to glory — 
Of the twain that were one, with an altar above it — 
Of the darling that died, with a willow to love it : 
'Tis the Blotter of tears for the mother and wife, 
And belongs to the Ledger and Day - Book of Life ! 



On the gnarled wooden hooks, over mantle and all, 
Is a battered Queen's Arm at a trail on the wall ; 



26 AN OLD-TIME PICTURE. 

And that filbert - brown gun Saratoga has heard ; 
It has come to the shoulder at Washington's 

word — 
What was saucy to kings is as dumb as a sword ! 

In the blessed home -room, and that dreamy June 

day, 
On the hearth were two children together at play : 
One, a shrivelled gray man, shrunk away in his 

wear, 
One, a boy like a distaff, with tow for his hair ; 
And one brought as he could the dead embers 

together, 
And one blew for his life like a blast of March 

weather. 
But the grizzled old boy was a - shiver in June, 
And his mate's puckered lips sadly lacking a tune. 

He never heard the birds outside, 
He never felt the drifting tide 
Of song and fragrance mingled so, 
As strangely blent they float along, 
You think you hear the roses blow, 
And smell the robin's scented song. 



AN OLD- TIME PICTURE. 



27 



Ah, the pulse that is dull with a dying desire 
Can be warmed never more by an old kitchen fire ! 
But the shrivelled gray man dreamed Iris way back 

to life ; 
In the howl of December he heard the wild strife, 
When the grand ragged regiments stood to the 

shock, 
And the troopers came down like the wave on the 

rock. 
So all things around helped his dreaming along, 
And they rallied his heart like young Hopkinson's 

song. 
E'en a kettle of samp that was lazily swung 
On a hook's smutty finger, contentedly hung, 
With its bubbles of gold, as they shattered and 

broke, 
Made him think of the far-away musketry smoke, 
When the field was red -edged with the troopers' 

red drift, 
Like a border of cloud with a ray in the rift, 
And the Georges in surges of scarlet did run 
Like a line of shore - billows pursued by the sun ! 
And the lift of the lid at the touch of the steam 
Was as measured and slow as a drum in a dream ! 



28 AN OLD- TIME PICTURE. 

Of the boys on the hearth one was yet on his knees, 
When the calm ruffled up with a breath of a breeze, 
And a posy of girls blossomed into the room, 
All the threads of their talk like the woof in a 

loom. 
The old man looked round in a querulous way 
On the exquisite grouping, as if he should say, 
" Do n't you s - e - e ? — Here I am, in my ninetieth 

year ! ' 
And he hollowed his hand till it fitted his ear. 
" Oh, my grandfather dear," cried a willowy girl, — 
And a pair of forefingers nimbly ran up a curl — 
44 1 was saying 4 next week is the Fourth of 

July.' " 
Then the faded gray eye had a dawn like the sky, 
Then the drowsy old heart gave an audible knock, 
And he said, 44 I will pick the old flint in the 

lock — 
44 Ah, she never missed fire — there's a spark in 

her yet, 
* 4 And the rattling old talk she can never forget ! " 
Then the poor bended figure grew stately and tall, 
For again he was hearing the bugler's old call ; 



AN OLD- TIME PICTURE. 



29 



The one hand was uplifted, the other was laid 
On the thistle-down head with whom he had 

played, 
And he murmured, " My boy, in whatever you do 
" Be as right and as ready — the gun is for you — 
" She 's a quick-witted jade, but she 's trusty and 

true." 
Then a hush like a ghost that is here without 

coming, 
Set the hearts of the maidens all halting and 

drumming, 
And the breeze held its breath that was filling the 

room. 
'Twas as if one had spoken direct from the tomb. 
With no charnel to rend and no coffin to rive, 
And the First Resurrection had found them alive ! 



And the day broke at last, with its bunting and 

thunder. 
And the eyes of the Thistle - down rounded with 

wonder : 
A big anvil was pounding away in the road, 
From the ridge of the barn a red banneret flowed : 



30 AN OLD- TIME PICTURE. 

On the pine in the yard perched an eagle benighted, 
By a hand - breadth of stars in blue calico lighted. 
And the "trainers" went by in white legs and 

blue breasts, 
All their plumes tall and straight, and with blood 

on their crests, 
And the riflemen green, in their fringes and frocks, 
"Shutting pan" down the line like the ticking of 

clocks ; 
And the troopers rode on in fierce coat and fur 

frown 
That had covered a bear, till it burdened them 

down. 

With the ruffle and roll of the double drum corps, 
And the fifes warbling up in the rumble and roar, 
Like a bird half bewildered caught out in a storm, 
Lo, there stood on the threshold the shrivelled 

gray form, 
With the battered Queen's Arm — ah, the darling 

old girl ! 
And then, just as the wind blew the flag out of 

furl, 



AN OLD-TIME PICTURE. 



31 



He was up with the musket and rattling away : 
It was three and three more for the Deed and the 

Day, 
And three rounds for the comrades that lay where 

they fell, 
In the front of the battle, the border of hell ; . 
And three guns for the Flag, and a toll for the dead 
Old Commander who rode in the tempest and said, 
" Blaze away there, my men ! Are you saving your 

lead?" 
So the clock struck thirteen — 'twas an old-time 

salute, 
And the smoke rolled away, and the musket was 

mute. 



And the shadows were traveling eastwardly all, 
They were shed from the trees in a lengthening 

fall, 
They were reaching so lovingly over the land, 
And were waving so strange when the forests 

were fanned, 
Toil would fancy them fingers of pitiful Night, 
That were gleaning the fields for a handful of light ; 



32 AN OLD - TIME PICTURE. 

And they lay like a hand on the Veteran's head, 
And he sat in his chair till the heavens were red, 
And the musket and Thistle -down lay at his feet, 
And his years were in sheaf like a bundle of wheat ; 
He had grounded his arms, and the Soldier was 
dead ! 

Ah, the world never halted, but trampled right 

on — 
Not so much as a pansy for him that had gone , 
And the grasses grew rank and the tablet grew 

small 
Till the name on the stone had no meaning at all, 
And the Fourth of July yet revolved like the 

Light 
As it flashes to sea, intermitting the night. 

There was growling of thunder low down in the 

sky, 
And the crown of calamity lifted on high, 
Every thorn was crushed home upon Liberty's 

brow — 
Valley Forge's own imprint had bloodied its snow ! 



AN OLD- TIME PICTURE. 



■!■> 



Then the trumpet of rally! The terrible tramp! 
The blue skies had all fallen! The world was a 

camp ! 
Then the columns spread wide like the limbs of a 

larch, 
And grew grander and broader. The world was 

a - march ! 
Then the crashing of cannon as batteries wheeled, 
And the shock of the legions! The world was 

a - field ! 
And the bullets flew fiercer and farther and faster 
In the storm equinoctial of death and disaster, 
Till the gardens of Eden were mantled in gloom 
And the world was a Ramah and Rachel at home ! 



And again it was June. The porch door was 

swung wide, 
And the sunshine rolled in with a wonderful tide 
Of the breath of the birds and the blossoms outside. 
Framed by threshold and lintel, a picture of grace, 
Stood a model of manhood, his heart in his face ; 
And the fellow was made on an exquisite plan. 
With the eye of a woman, the mouth of a man ; 
c 



34 AN OLD-TIME PICTURE. 

And his mother stood near in white apron and arm — 
And her silver - white hair did her beauty no harm — - 
With a wide maple bowl where she patted and 

rolled 
With a broad wooden ladle an ingot of gold, 
And then lifted the ball to a platter of delf ; 
It was Thistle-down's mother and Thistle-down's 

self! 
While her locks were turned white, his were 

deep'ning to brown — 

Then she nervously said, " What's the news from 

the town?" 
" Oh, my mother," he cried, " there's a call for 

more men ! 
" And they've made it before — I can't hear it 

again ! 
" And no more 't would mean me had they called 

out my name !" 
And his eyes were in tears, though his cheeks were 

aflame. 

" Did they lie when they said that a man-child was 

born? 
" It could never be me, and I hid in the corn ! — 



AN OLD- TIME PICTUEE. 



35 



" All the boys march by bugle, and I by that horn ! " 
And he turned back a thumb at the pitiful thing, 
Where it hung to the wall by its halter of string — 
"Oh, my mother, say 4 yes,'" and he bent low 

above her, 
And he swallowed his heart like a pleading young 

lover ; 
" Do you mind of that Fourth in old grandfather's 

time ! 
" 'T was the half of a couplet — I '11 finish the 

rhyme." 
Then she lifted her face with a shiver of pain, 
For the surge from her heart had rolled back from 

her brain, 
And she said, " The Lord gave, and — " " Oh, no," 

he broke in, 
" Let the sentence be ended right where you begin. 
" Oh, not ' taken away ' but just borrowed awhile ;" 
And then murmuring low, with a far-away smile, 
" I '11 come back in the blue, and we '11 bless Him 

together, 
" And we '11 talk it all over, — this dark heavy 

weather. 



36 AN OLD-TIME PICTURE. 

" I will go — it is duty — the way the thing looks ;" 

And he took down the 2:1m from the brown wooden 
hooks, 

And he said, "I will keep my old Grand- 
father's Fourth ! " 

And he blent with the blue of the broad azure 
North. 

Then the June came again, and the bee and the 

bird, 
And the Thistle-down too, but he uttered no 

word, 
Though he came in the blue, as he said he would 

come, 
But with wailing of fife and the moaning of drum. 

And the mother sat still in the sunny old porch, 
And her eyes had burned down like a perishing 

torch, 
But she took up the verse at the very same 

word : 
" And has taken away, and be blessed the 

Lord!" 



AN OLD -TIM K PICTURE. 



017 

i 



Do you think that the Foueth of July can go 

down 
While a Thistle -blow lives long enough to be 

brown ? 
li will yel be a child at an hundred years ol<] ! 
Lo ! the columns of Centuries grandly unfold ! 
Rear rank, open order ! and front rank, about 

face ! 
And the Ages salute as they stand in their place, 
And the Day passes through with an eloquent 

grace ! 
See it shine down the lines with unquenchable 

light — 
Good morn, Boy in Blue ! Continental, GOOD 

NIGHT ! 



THE CHILD AND THE STAR. 

/^"^vH, feel in your bosom, my darling, 
^-^ If the flutter is there as of old, 
The pant of Sterne's captive, the starling, 
When this old - fashioned story is told. 
Oh, the days sparkling up to the rim 

That bounds the one world by the other ! 
Oh, your heart even full to the brim 

With love like the love of your mother ! 
When you knew nothing more about sorrow or sin 
Than the buttercups knew that she held to your 

chin, 
While she watched with a smile your small secret 

unfold, 
As it tinted the white with a glimmer of gold ! 

We stood in the pasture together 

With the clover - breath over our heads, 

Right down from the Lord came the weather, 
Right up went the larks from their beds ; 



THE CHILD AND THE STAR. 



39 



And we longed for a goldfinch's billow 

As it rode the invisible flood — 
An oriole swung from a willow, 

And the daisies were bowing to God ! 
But the year was a harp, and like David the king's, 
And the graver the cadence the longer the strings — 
One by one went the days, growing briefer and 

fewer, 
And we told theru all off, and no tale could be 

truer, — 
So we watched out the time with no thought of a 

sigh, 
For our hearts danced and sang, " Merry Christmas 

is nigh ! " 



Oh, honey-bee, gypsy of summer, 

There *s a flower that is sweeter than thine ! 
For thee there 's an Angel for comer, 

With the sweep of a pinion divine* 
Oh, Day on the hem of December ! 

And oh, Star of old Bethlehem's brood ! 
Shine down in m} r heart like an ember 

With a glow from the altar of God. 



40 THE CHILD AND THE STAR. 

Oh, fairest of flowers in the garden 

That dost blossom the brightest and last, 
When our Eden has furloughed its warden, 

And the roses and lilies are past ; 
When Euroclydon's fingers so sculpture the snow, 
That you hardly can tell if the sleeper below 
Is just waiting for Spring, or the Trumpet to blow j 
When the. marble in motion and the Parian blend, 
'Till the sexton must say where " God's acre " 

should end, 
And 'mid these from the quarry and those from the 

cloud, 
Must declare which they are that are wearing a 

shroud ! 

Sit here by my side like a lover, 

Let us turn down the flare of the lamp, 
And talk the dear story all over 

'Till around us the shadows encamp. 
As we did in the days of the olden, 

We will light a dim candle again, 
For the blaze of a chandelier golden 

Never shone from the Now to the Then. 



THE CHILD AND THE STAR. 

We will blow a dull coal to its glowing, 

As we blew it long ages ago, 
While the Lord of the Harvest is sowing 

With His tempest out there in the snow. 



41 



Do you see that gray roof, strangely drifted with 

leaves, 
And the moss all along on its low northern eaves ? 
'Tis as if Robin Redbreast, on duty again, 
Would have covered my dead from the vision of 

men. 
Each side of the gate a bold Lombardy stands, 
As stately as warders, as graceful as wands, 
That I watched long ago, while they swept the 

blue sky 
All clear of the clouds that were loitering by ! 
I there in my cradle slowly rocking and dream- 



ing, 



They clearing the road where the angels were 



odeamino - . 



Now I pause on the threshold the loving feet trod 
That have walked upon thorns, that have gone up 
to God — 



42 THE CHILD AND THE STAR. 

All traced here and there on threshold or stair 
But the one pair that left not a print anywhere — 
Ah, the little bare feet that had never been shod ! 

Oh, heart of the house, my dead Mother, 

Give your boy the old greeting once more 
That I never have heard from another 

Since Death was let in at the door. 
I can reach up my hand to the ceiling 

Of the rooms once the world's greater part — 
Who wonders I cannot help feeling 

They have narrowed to fit to my heart ! 

Ah, these little green panes let the morning in late 
But it never was stained by the emerald gate — 
And the clock has run down in its desolate place, — 
How we counted it in with its moon of a face, 
When we said "Four were born but the clock is 

alive," 
And the household forever was numbered at five. 
And dumb is the bell that did toll off the hours 
And the boys and the blessings, the birds and the 

flowers, 



THE CHILD AND THE STAR, 



43 



And dead are the hands that were lifted a space 
When the noon seemed to halt while the father 

said grace ! 
Here 's the place on the jamb where we " reckoned " 

at night, 
There 's a mark on the wall where we measured 

our height, 
And a line on the sill where the sunbeam swung 

round 
Like a ship on a bar, as 't was nearing the 

ground. 
Ah, how slowly it crept when some day was to - 

morrow ! 
Ah, how swiftly it went I have learned to my 

sorrow ! 
Oh, if Gibeon's sun could have shone there of 

old, 
And burnished the sill with unperishing gold ! 



The air is alive with a shiver — 

There 's a wandering chill in the room — 
There's a foot that has forded the river — 

There 's a hand feels for mine from a tomb ! 



44 THE CHILD AND THE STAR. 

I take it in silence, unshrinking, 

And I warm it again in my grasp, 
There is nothing of sadness in thinking 

Two worlds may have met in the clasp. 
My heart strangely longs as I linger, 

To be decked with some darling old word, 
Be clasped as a ring clasps a finger 

By a trinket my boyhood had heard — 
Some fragment of speech by love broken, 

As the emblem was broken by Christ, 
That, passed round the homestead in token 

Would a soul from a sod have enticed ! 

Ah, the chimney 'draws' still! It is drawing my 

heart, 
And that rudest of things ever fashioned by art 
Does so kindle my soul with intensest desire 
To become as a child and see faces in fire, 
That I never can wonder the curling blue smoke, 
As dull water was wine when Divinity spoke, 
Always turned into crimson the instant it broke 
Like a gloiy unrolled into sunshine and air 
And then floated abroad like an archangel's hair ! 
For that chimney was ever the top of the stair 



Till-: CHILD AND THE STAR. 



45 



Where my Angel came down in the dear Christmas 

Eve : 
Oh, set back the old clock and still let me believe 
That the saint of my childhood, Saint Nicholas 

( ame 
Down that tunnel of glory, the route of the (lame ! 
Here the stockings were swung in their red, white, 

and blue, 
All fashioned to feet that Avere light as the dew, 
For they walked upon flowers without crushing a 

bud, 
That have trampled the flint 'till it blushes with 

blood. 
Ah, the fragrant old faith when we watched the 

cold gray 
Reluctantly line the dim border of day. 
When we braved the bare floor with our little bare 

feet — 
No shrine to a pilgrim was ever so sweet. 
When each heart and each stocking was burdened 

with bliss — 
On the verge of two worlds there is nothing like this 
But a mother's last smile and a lover's first kiss ! 



46 THE CHILD AND THE STAR. 

44 Merry Christmas," we cried, and in answer to 

prayer, 
The glad greeting came back like a gush of June 

air, 
That had lurked out the night in those bosoms of 

theirs 
To waylay us at dawn when we stole down the 

stairs. 
God pity the man who has naught to remember, 
With no heart anywhere if not in December, 
Who abandons the Cross because Romans adore it, 
And yet longs for the crown that is carried before it ; 
Who declaring the birth - day of Christ is uncertain 
Would let down on the Manger Oblivion's cur- 
tain — 
Unheeding the birth of the Heir to the Throne 
While he tells off the years, and then honors his 

own! 
Shuts the door on the angels commissioned by 

Heaven 
To belong to the children for one blessed even, 
Locks out of their hearts the invisible land, 
And tarnishes time with the touch of his hand. 



THE CHILD AND THE STAR. 



47 



Where the birds had the freedom of window and 

eaves, 
And the walls were all garnished with Bethlehem's 

sheaves, 
The bright straw with its amber bestrewing the 

floor, 
The great eyes of the oxen like lamps at the door, 
And their breath clouding up the dim air of the 

place 
As if censers were swinging round altars of grace, 

Was the Prince of all worlds in humility born, 

Who created the Christmas and crowned the new 

morn. 



There were Angels without but a flash from the 

throne, 
With the flow of their robes as two mornings in 

one, 
For those angels without brought their glory along, 
And they sang to the planet its first Christmas 

Song. 
The Star in the East took its place in the choir, 
While the Seraph sang alto the Angels sang air, 



48 THE CHILD AND THE STAR. 

And they said : " Unto God all the glory be given !" 
Ere it ended on earth it had mounted to heaven — 
And they said, and the cadence is lingering still, 
" Be His peace evermore to the men of good will!" 

There were Shepherds hard by when the carol 

arose, 
And they came as they were, in their every - day 

clothes ; 
All above in the blue lay the Lord's shining sheep, 
And below in the green were their own fast asleep ; 
And their hearts of themselves just beginning to sing 
What had fluttered to earth like a lark with one 

wing, 
But the anthem's grand surge swept it up to the 

King ! 
And that first Christmas Party stood out in the 

moon 
As they watched the transfigured and glorified 

tune. 

And the Magi were seeking the Christmas that dajr, 
And the Star went before them and blazoned the 
way — 



7Y//<; CHILD AND THE STAR. 



49 



Ah, the children and Christmas together belong, 

As the melody marries the words of a song 

That can float us right up where the Seraphim 

throng. 
With their hands in a tremble the Magi unfold 
All their treasures of myrrh and their tokens of gold, 

And they swept the brown manger with beards 

like the drift, 
As the cloud turns to snow with the moon in the 

rift, 
And thev led off the world with their first Christ- 

mas Gift. 



And the Star and the Manger, the Carol and Child 
Have been gladdening the planet since Bethlehem 

smiled. 
Bid the singers begin, and the Manger's old chorus 
We will sing as they sang through the ages before 

us : 

Oh, lift your dull heart from its pillow, 
Let me hold it awhile in my hand, 

Till it warms at the sio-fit of the willow 
As the sailor at sio;ht of the land : 

D 



50 THE CHILD AND THE STAR. 

'Till it rallies some soul from its sorrow, 

'Till it smiles the dark winter away, 
Lights the hope of a better To - morrow 

With the glow of a brighter To - day. 
Let us bid for a cloud to be lifted, 

For a bed that is nothing but straw, 
- For a hearth that is ashen and drifted 

For a debtor disastered by law ; 
That the tables of stone may be broken 

And the hearth be an altar of gold, 
And the pillow of Bethel betoken 

Not a couch but the Dreamer's of old ! 
What song was born out of the grieving, 

What a faith in its splendor began, 
What worship of God by believing 

In the angel that lingers in man ! 

Oh, awake in your chambers, ye bells every- 
where, 
Overturn, oh, ye goblets, and empty in air 
All the music that swells to your resonant brims, 
'Till ye throb like our hearts, and it blends with 
our Irymns ! 



! 



THE CHILD AND THE STAR. 



51 



Now be thanks to our God that this Eve of the 

Christmas, 
Uniting two worlds with its radiant Isthmus, 
And joining again what transgression had riven, 
Is the children's own road to the Kingdom of 

Heaven ! 
Oh, bells that are iron ! Oh, hearts that are 

human ! 
Oh, songs that are sweet as the loving of woman ! 
Be ye blent all the while in a chorus sublime 
As the carol of stars by the cradle of Time ! 
And oh, spare us an angel from Bethlehem's choir, 
Let him bring the same song that he helped to sing- 
there, 
Be the grand old beatitude sounded again, 
And to earth everywhere, Merry Christmas, 
Amen ! 



L 



THANKSGIVING. 

AY out the earth in a sheet of snow, 
There is nothing at all to harm below, 
Where men dream out the world together, 
And pansies sleep 'till pleasant weather - — 
The safest place in all the land 
Is the narrow realm of the folded hand ! 
Then thanks to God that a flower will die,— 
'T was made to time Thanksgiving by : 
Breathe as it falls — prophetic thing ! — 
" There '11 be an April in the Spring ! " 
Then thanks to God for a sister there 
To stand on Glory's diamond stair, 
And thanks again, though I go late, 
A mother gone shall smiling wait, 
Shall breathe three names with reverent tone, 
The Child's, the Virgin's, and her Own, 
And lift the latch of Mercy's gate ! 

52 



" 



THA NKSGI VING. 



53 



II. 

Rouse up the fire to a costly glow, 
'Till the maple parts and the rubies show ! 
Swing back the curtains now if ever, 
And, rich and warm, the slender river 
Shall cleave Thanksgiving - Night in twain 
As the mantle parted the old Red Main ! — 
Ah, never fear — shine as it will, 
Enough is left to cheer us still. 
Perhaps some wanderer going past, 
Who tried all sorrows but the last, 
And wonders why he dares to live, 
And thinks he has no thanks to give, 
May see that glimmer on the ground, — 
His old dead heart give glad rebound, — 
It looks so like the road of gold 
He trod himself in time of old — 
Look up and see Thanksgiving found ! 



in. 



Bring out the chairs from the empty wall, 
Where fitful shadows used to fall, 



54 THANKSGIVING. 

The shapes of father, sister, mother, 

Of slender sweetheart, friend, and brother. 

No painted window half so fair 

As the old home - room with its shadows there ; 

No pictured hall, at king's desire, 

Could match that group before the fire, 

Who never cast a shade beside, 

But on that wall, and when they died ! 

And some went up at break of day, 

Some waited longer by the way ; — 

Let them who will thank God for light, 

Such shadows never made it night. 

Come one, come all, there yet is room, 

Thanks be to God, from heaven to home 

Is nothing but a flash of flight ! 

IV, 

Wheel forth the table, a laden palm, 

We '11 all give thanks and we '11 sing a psalm — 

Some song old-fashioned, of Forever, 

That floated safe across the river, 

No note lost out, no cadence gone, 

They warbled, died, and sang right on ! 



y 



TlIAXk'SGIVING. 



55 



The girls shall come in their white and blue 

As if they broke God's azure through, 

Played truant to the realms of light 

To be with us Thanksgiving night. 

The boys are thronging through the hall, 

They Ve not grown old these years at all ! . 

Some marched away to muffled drum 

But fling no shadows as they come — 

Without a sorrow or a sin 

E'en Death himself would let them in — 

Oh, Sweethearts ! Comrades ! Welcome home ! 



A POET'S LEGACY. 



T)AST twenty -one and Love's of age, 
-*■ Has lost his wings and gained his. eyes, 
Looks down on life's nnended page, 

Looks np and sees the azure skies. 
He 's safe to stay while we abide, 

His time for flight forever past, 
'T will be we three whatever betide, 

While roses blow and lilacs last. 
No bankrupt Firm is this of ours, 
But rich as June in suns and showers. 

Bring out the ledger ! Every thing 
That men call gains shull be for sale — 

Ay, let them go for what they '11 bring, 
We '11 keep our losses till we fail ! 

56 



A POET'S LEG Ay ' . 

Of old when Judah's children wed, 

They pledged their faith in crimson wine, 

Then broke the crystal as they said : 
" No lips shall touch its brim but mine! 

" This shall no meaner love profane ! " 

The shattered symbol fell like rain. 

None stooped to pick the fragments up — 

All knew the thing the token meant: 
Behold, one love had crowned the cup, 

No matter where the goblet went! 
And so, my wife, in Judah's way 

We 've drank life's golden draught of wine, 
And strown the vase's glittering clay — 

See where the sculptured fragments shine ! 
The ledger now ! Let it be known 
How rich and grand this Firm has grown. 

The flock of clouds we always keep 
Are marked with rainbows every one, 

AVe know our own celestial sheep 

That throng the blue and graze the sun ; 

'Tis fine to see them trooping home, 
Their fleeces tangled thick with stars ; 



O i 



58 



A POET'S LEGACY. 



'Tis fine to watch them as they come 
And wait at Evening's golden bars ; 
Their shadows fall upon our way, 
As if old Night had walked by day 

And left her foot -prints as she went; 

Some look like graves of friends that died, 
Whose sunken mounds the sward indent, 

Of babe and gallant bridegroom's bride, 
Of golden tress and silver hair, — 

And some like hopes our hearts have shed, 
That fell as leaves in autumn air 

And crush beneath our thoughtful tread. 
Dear wife, we have no clouds to sell, 
They make the sunshine show so well ! 

An angel troop this Firm commands, 

A score and one they stand in line, 
And swing aloft in radiant hands 

A score and one of Eves divine ! 
Of Christmas Eves and Christmas bells 

And Christmas gifts with blessing twice 
That bring us all, by mystic spells 

In kissing range of Paradise ! 



A POET'S LEGACY. 



My wife, we would not give them up 
To mend again the shattered cup ! 

A score and one of kindling Junes, 

The warm and blushing brides of Time, 
Are ranged along like notes in tunes, 

And keep our hearts in rhythmic rhyme. 
We own a score of belfryed towers 

Where bird -like wishes bred and born 
Are singing songs — those birds are ours — 

We count our twentieth New Year's morn ! 
No birds to sell, nor songs nor chimes, 
We '11 keep them all till harder times ! 

We have some castles gray and grand 

That cloudless suns do shine upon, 
Along their halls retainers stand 

And speak Castilian every one. 
Nobody dies who dwelleth there, 

They have a clime where tempests swoon, 
No graves to make, no empty chair, 

And Christmas in the month of June ! 
I'll make the deeds — you'll sign them sure, 
And castles twelve we '11 give the poor ! 



60 A POET'S LEGACY. 

We 've had a wealth of dreams as rife 

As corn along the bladed west, 
We have them still in broider'd life 

Like flowers npon a wedding vest. 
There comes a little sounder sleep, 

There comes a richer flush of dawn, 
'Till then we '11 keep our flocks of sheep, 

No castle, cloud, or angel gone. 
Down flag of red ! We '11 make no sale 
But hold our losses till we fail ! 

To make all sure rny Will behold : 

" To her who kept this Firm alive 
" I now bequeath my clouds of gold, 

" My angel choir, my castles five, 
' My score of belfries, all my sheep, 

" The fragments of the sculptured vase, 
" To have and hold and ever keep ! " 

And yet I 've done no act of grace, 
They all are yours, but whose are you ? 
I freely give and keep them too ! 



THE SONG OF THE AGE. 

W 70ULD ye know the grand song that shall 

^ * sing out the age — 
That shall flow down the world as the lines down 

the page — 
That shall break through the zones like a North 

and South river, 
From winter to spring making music forever ? 
I heard its first tone by an old-fashioned hearth — 
'Twas an anthem's faint cry on the brink of it's 

birth ! 
'T was the tea - kettle's drowsy and droning refrain 
As it sang through its nose as it swung from the 

crane. 



'Twas a being begun and awaiting its brains — 
To be saddled and bridled and given the reins. 

61 



62 THE SONG OF THE AGE. 

Now its lungs are of steel and its breathings of 

fire 
And it craunches the miles with an iron desire ; 
Its white cloud of a mane like a banner unfurled, 
It howls through the hills and it pants round 

the world ! 
It furrows the forest and lashes the flood 
And hovers the miles like a partridge's brood ! 

Oh, stand ye to - day in the door of the heart, 
With its nerve raveled out, floating free on the air, 
And feeling its way with ethereal art, 
By the flash of the telegraph everywhere, 
And then think, if you can, of a mission more grand 
Than a mission to live in this time and this land, 
Round the world for a sweetheart an arm you can 

wind, 
And your lips to the ear of the listening mankind ! 



J UNE. 



HT*HE world is in June and it ripples in rhyme, — 
"*■ June ! Sweetheart of Life and own darling 
of Time. 
The year, with glad laughter, plays truant to 

Death, 
Goes back so near Eden she catches its breath, 
And follows that airy old fashion of Eve's, 
And rustles abroad in an apron of leaves ! 
She holds her cheek long to the kiss of the sun, 
Days widen and warm like some volume begun, 
Narrow night like a ribbon just marking the 

page 
Where some eloquent thought shall last out the 

age. 
Every bush has a blossom, a bee, or a bird, 
A beauty to blow or a hum to be heard — 
Battalions of legs — all eyes or all stings — 

G3 



64 JUNE. 

And billions of monsters, musquitoes, and " things," 
And needles like cherubs, with' nothing but wings. 
There 's a promise to plead or a bill to present, 
A grave to be opened, a shroud to be rent, 
For they rise without trump ; resurrections in 

June 
Are as blithe as the lark and as bonny as Doon. 
From the tick of a heart in the breast of a wren 
To the trumpets that make Agamemnons of men, — 
From the tear drop that trembles unnashed from 

its brim 
To the surly old storm that rolls over earth's rim, 
Tramples out the white stars as daisies are trod, 
While its red plumage shakes with the drum - beat 

of God, 
Till green world and blue world by tempest are 

riven 
And the lightnings' dread squadrons charge right 

up to Heaven, 
As Sheridan went — as if grim Mission Ridge 
With its arches of fire were the pier of a bridge 
Somebody had built to the gates of the sky 
And he bound to go up without waiting to die — 



JUNE. 



65 



Everything, everywhere, struggling up in the strife, 
Is beginning to climb that strange ladder of life, 
With an angel alight on its uppermost round 
And an atom alive where it touches the ground. 
From the blue music -box of the robin's old wife 
A burglar breaks through into mansions of life. . 

Hearts are trumps here in June : heart of lion and 

lark, 
Heart of Richard and Rachel and Joan of Arc ; 
Heart of iron and oak, steady, sturdy, and true, 
When through lines of red fire broke the jackets 

of blue ; 
A world of life's rivers all ebbing and flowing, 
A world full of hearts like hammers all going, 
Yet instead of our hearing these drummers of 

wonder 
With their ruffle and roll pulsing out into thunder, 
The earth is, for all of this turbulent crowd, 
As still as a star, or the shape in a shroud. 



I think it was June when the maiden looked down 
On the dear little Moses just ready to drown, 



E 



m 



JUNE. 



And, his basket of bulrushes rocked by the Nile, 
That Columbus of Canaan looked up with a smile ! 



When summer's green surges roll over the land 
Till you hardly can tell as they break on the 

strand, 
Where this world doth end or the other begin, 
They so hide all the graves, the first footprints of 

sin, 
Is it strange that Earth's singers should drift out 

of June, 
As if lifted by chance on the swell of a tune. 
And fairly float over life's musical bars, 
When the birds can go with them half way to the 

stars ? 
So went Sontag and Weber — magnificent pair ! — 
He was clerk to the angels and she sang in the 

choir ; 
He recorded in score, but she passed down the 

word 
Till a turbulent world grew human and heard. 
Ah, talk of the eye unsleeping, unweeping, 
Undaunted, undying, its watch and ward keeping, 



JUNE. 



67 



To whose glance telescopic raveled midnight is 

given — 
You can see to Orion, but you hear into Heaven ! 

So went they in June who with wonderful art 
Put in English and rhythm the beat of the heart — 
The bard of Sweet Hope and the bard of Sweet 

Home. 
They wronged thee, oh Sexton ! They tenant no 

tomb, 
For Campbell shall live when the tartan is dim. 
And Payne walk the world that is chanting his 

hymn. 

How came they in June who the rainbow unbent, 
And laid it alive on the fold of a tent ; 
With fingers immortal the curtain withdrew 
And the canvas was kindled and faces looked 

through — 
Lips ruddy and ripe with the old loving glow 
Somebody was kissing three ages ago ! 
So Rubens, June born, the grand master of art, 
With a nerve in his pencil strung straight from his 

heart, 



68 JUNE. 

At whose touch the Evangels gave Calvary up, 
The Christ and the Cross and the Crown and the 

Cup — 
And Hebrew and Greek fell away from the story 
And left it sublime in its gloom and its glory ! 

And that Spaniard, June born, whose fame shed a 

gleam 
Ere Plymouth had pilgrim or Bunyan a dream — 
With no drop of blue blood in breast or in brain, 
By a right far diviner than Philip's of Spain, 
Was own king of colors- — whose banners so brave 
Never lowered unto death, never struck to the 

grave ; 
Pride and pomp of the realm the Armada went 

down, 
Cleared the face of the sea like a vanishing frown, 
But some child that he painted, its journey un- 
done, 
Makes the transit of ages as Venus the sun ! 



"&' 



Christ lay in thy manger, oh, fairest of stars ! 
June rocks in thy cradle, oh, brighter than Mars^ 



JUNE. 



m 



God walked in thy garden — man sprung from thy 

dust — 
Ah, who would not hold thy grand story in trust, 
That no blade would be wielded nor battle be 

born, 
But the green waving sabres by ranks of young 

corn ? 
Yet what broods of grim thunders have nested in 

June, 
Swooped from eyries of blue in the broad summer 

noon, 
Splashed the greenest sod red with the color of 

fame, 
Flared the flags into flower with their breathings 

of flame, 
And growled the world dumb — all its eloquent 

words, 
The laugh of its girls and the songs of its birds. 
Marengo roars down the long highway sublime, 
'Tis the Corsican clocks striking Bonaparte's 

time — 
The grumble of guns that had hidden the stars 
From the sands of the Nile to the land of the Czars ; 



. 



70 JUNE. 

Old Monmouth breaks in with its rattle and rain 
To the flash of the flint and " mad Anthony 
Wayne." 

And Cromwell the trooper, half lamb and half lion, 
For the wicked King Charles and the blessed 

Mount Zion — 
Two hundred years nearer Time's morning than 

now, 
Rode into the storm naked blade and bare brow, 
Wheeled his surly old squadrons as the Lord wheels 

a cloud — 
Their hearts and their cannon all throbbing aloud— 
And rode down the King with a cavalry shock 
That smote off his crown, bent his head to the 

block, 
Made royalists tremble and monarchy rock ! 

But the throb of no battery ever has stirred 

The world's mighty heart like some stout English 

word, 
Wherein a brave utterance sandaled and shod 
Has marched down the ages for Freedom and God ! 



JUNE. 



71 



'Mid the splendor of June the roar of the Shannon 
Roused something more grand than the Chesa- 
peake's cannon, 
For she wrung out the words from Lawrence's lip 
That shall linger for ever : " Do n't give up the 

ship!" 
Ah, the click of flint locks is not half so divine 
As the click of the type as they fall into line, 
The audible step of unfaltering feet 
To a mightier tune than our bosoms can beat. 



I remember the heroes who sailed out of June, 
Ross, Harvey, and Franklin, and Hudson's " Half 

Moon," 
Into realms where the sea has breathlessly stood 
Like the scalps of the Alps dumb and white before 

God; 
Who have bended the oar and have lifted the 



wino- 



s> 



Fairly fled the dominions of caliph and king, 
Broken out of horizons as old as mankind, 
Shatter'd shells of the worlds they were leaving 
behind. 



72 JUNE. 

Aye, Harvey, who stood by the brink of a heart. 
And saw it brim over, turn crimson and start, 
And discovered a river as truly God's own 
As the river of crystal that flows by His throne. 

Bear away, ye tall ships, farewell and all hail ! 
Cloud up, main and mizzen, weigh anchor, and sail ! 
Be lifted blue Heaven ! Let the admirals through, 
There 's a lubber ashore that is grander than you ! 
Born of rags and flung down on a marvelous 

street, 
All rough with the prints of a million of feet, 
And cradled in iron and trampled with ink, 
This poor dingy creature, I venture to think, 
The frailest and feeblest of fluttering things, 
As easily crushed as a butterfly's wings, 
Has more power, oh, ye ships, than your canvas of 

white 
To let out the world and to let in the light, 
And swing from their hinges the portals of night. 

Let the ashes of Smithfield tell, if they can, 
When this gift of the Pentecost fell upon man. 



JUNE. 



73 



It was born out of doors in that faded old June 
When the chime of Christ's ages struck twelve 

o'clock noon, 
And the barons of John plucked the heart of this 

thing, 
The Charter of Liberty, warm from the King. - 



1 



Imperial June of the emerald crown ! 

When angels had read the Lord's weather -roll 

down, 
They found but one June in all Heaven to spare, 
And direct by the route of the answer to prayer 
From the glory above thou didst fall through the 

air. 



OCTOBER. 



I. 



T WOULD not die in May : 



When orchards drift with blooms of white like 
billows on the deep, 
And whispers from the Lilac bush across my senses 

sweep, 
That 'mind me of a girl I knew when life was 

always May, 
Who filled my nights with starry hopes that faded 

out by day — 
When time is full of wedding-days, and nests of 

robins brim, 
'Till overflows their wicker sides the old familiar 

hymn — 
The window brightens like an eye, the cottage 

doors swing wide. 
The boys come homeward one by one and bring a 

smiling bride, 

74 



OCTOBER. 



75 



The fire-fly shows her signal light, the partridge 

beats his drum, 
And all the world gives promise of something 
sweet to come — 

Ah, who would die on such a day ? 
Ah, who would die in May ? 



ii. 

I would not die in June : 
When looking up with faces quaint the pansies 

grace the sod, 
And looking down, the willows see their doubles 

in the flood — 
When blessing; God we breathe again the roses in 

the air. 
And lilies light the fields along with their immor- 

tal wear 
As once they lit the Sermon of the Saviour on the 

Mount, 
And glorified the story they evermore recount — 
Through pastures blue the flocks of God go troop- 
ing one by one, 
And turn their golden fleeces round to dry them 

in the sun — 



76 OCTOBER. 

When calm as Galilee the grain is rippling in the 

wind, 
And nothing dying anywhere but something that 
has sinned — 

Ah, who would die in life's own noon ? 
Ah, who would die in June ? 

in. 

But when October comes, 
And poplars drift their leafage down in flakes of 

gold below, 
And beeches burn like twilight fires that used to 

tell of snow, 
And maples bursting into flame set all the hills 

a -fire, 
And Summer from her evergreens sees Paradise 

draw nigher — 
A thousand sunsets all at once distil like Hermon's 

dew, 
And linger on the waiting woods and stain them 

through and through, 
As if all earth had blossomed out, one grand Co- 
rinthian flower, 
To crown Time's graceful capital for just one 

gorgeous hour ! 



OCTOBER. 



77 



They strike their colors to the king of all the 

stately throng — 
He comes in pomp, October ! To him all times 

belong : 
The frost is on his sandals but the flush is on his 

cheeks, 
September sheaves are in his arms, June voices 

when he speaks — 
The elms lift bravely like a torch within a Grecian 

hand. 
See where they light the Monarch on through all 

the splendid land ! 
The sun puts on a human look behind the hazy 

fold. 
The mid -year moon of silver is struck anew in 

gold, 
In honor of the very day that Moses saw of old, 
For in the Burning Bush that blazed as quenchless 

as a sword 
The old Lieutenant first beheld October and the 

Lord ! 

Ah, then, October, let it be — 

I'll claim my dying day from thee ! 



TORNADO SUNDAY. 

r I ^HE winds sweetly sung 
-*■ In the elms as they swung, 
And the woods were in time and the robins in tune ; 

One cloud just forgiven, 

Lay at anchor in heaven. 
And Iowa asleep on the threshold of June ! 

All the air a great calm, 
And the prairie a palm, 
For the Lord when He blest, left the print of His 
hand — 
All the roses in blow, 
All the rivers a -glow, 
Thus the Sabbath came down on the bud - laden 
land. 

On the bride and the bold, 
On the clay and the gold, 

78 



TORNADO SUNDAY. ~\\ 

On the furrow unfinish 'd, on fame to be won. 

On the turbulent tide, 

On the river 's green side 
Where the flocks of white villages hoy in the sun. 

All the world was in rhyme — 

Bid good morning to Time ! 
Oh, sweet bells and sweet words of the dear golden 
Then ! 

It is fair all abroad 

From blue sky to green sod ! 
Let us pray while we can : blessed Sabbath, Amen ! 

Not a murmur in air, 

Nor lament anywhere, 
And no footfall of God on the ledges of cloud : 

'T was a breath, and it fled — 

Song and Sabbath were dead, 
And the threads of gold sunshine the woof of the 
shroud. 

Oh, words never spoken, 
Oh, heart and hearth broken, 



80 TORNADO SUNDAY. 

Oh, beautiful paths such as loving feet wear ! 

All erased from the land, 

Like a name in the sand — 
As the thistle-down drifts on a billow of air! 

Like the sighing of leaves 

When the winter wind grieves, 
Like the rattle of chariots driving afar, 

Like the wailing of woods, 

Like the rushing of floods, 
Like the clang of huge hammers a - forging a star ! 

Like a shriek of despair 

In the shivering air, 
Like the rustle of banners with tempest abroad, 

Like a soul out of heaven, 

Like a tomb trumpet - riven, 
Like a syllable dropp'd from the thunder of God ! 

Then these to their weeping, 

And those to their sleeping, 
And the blue wing of heaven was over them all ! 

Oh " sweet south" that singeth, 

Oh, flower girl that bringeth 
The gushes of fragrance to hovel and hall ! 



TOR X A DO SUNDAY. %\ 

Oh, blue -bird, shed Spring 

With the Hash of thy wing, 
Where December drifts cold in the bosom of June — 

Set our hearts to the words. 

Dear as songs of first birds : 
We are Brothers at night that were strangers at 
noon! 



F 



THE SKYLARK. 

HELD in my hand a wonder — a hymn of a 
-*- thousand years ; 
It was born in an English meadow— it was older 

than English cheers — 
'Twas a hymn for the Roman eagles and a psalm 

for the Norman Line — • 
It was sung through the wars of the Roses, when 

the York turned red as wine — 
It was heard on Bosworth field, when Gloster's 

flint struck fire, 
And Richard 's soul to Richmond 's steel did glim - 

mer and expire ; 
When the peans for the thane drowned the dirges 

for the thing, 
And lie swept across the planet on fame 's eternal 

wing, 
Who waged the battle as an earl but won it as a 

king, 

82 



THE SKYLARK. 



83 



And plucked the crown of England from the haw- 
thorn where it hung, 

And lightly to his longing brow Golconda 's clus- 
ter swung, 

The crown upon the coronet, till the light of its 
pearls grew thin 

And pale as a morning star that has led the day- 
light in. 

Charge ! and Marston Moor was a drum by gal - 

loping cavalry beat, 
Halt ! and each iron rank brought up with a clank, 

and each trooper sat still in his seat. 
Hark ! and down from the blue to the red was 

floating that exquisite strain, 
As if every rider had ridden, and never drawn sabre 

or rein, 
Right out of the hell of the battle to the door of 

heaven ajar, 
And thought he heard before his time the singing 

of a star, 
And thought he saw in the downy cloud the truant 

from the choir, 
As it hung in sweet libration — an anthem in the air. 



84 THE SKYLARK. 

And I held in my hand that wonder — a book 

with a single psalm, 
That would not brim the hollow cf a woman 's 

loving palm ; 
And the lyric was brown breasted, and the lids of 

the book were wings, 
And the bird was an English skylark, and the 

feeblest of God 's things, 
That had fallen out of the azure like a mote from 

a mighty eye, 
And had shared the fate of the sparrow, for the 

Father saw him die. 
Oh, bravest bird of Britain ! — a little ounce of 

death — 
Oh, song born out of heaven ! — a clod without a 

breath. 

And then my soul grew reverent — my heart beat 

strong and grand, 
As I thought of the broad commission of the atom 

in my hand ; 
That the Admiral of the fleets at anchor off the world, 
Flung out his pennant with a touch that little pin - 

ion furled — 



THE SKYLARK 



>.-> 



Unrolled the scrolls of thunder, 'twixt the seraph 

and the sod, 
Dashed down a word of fire in the running hand 

of God, 
And stamped the stormy margins with His ring so 

broad and brave, 
One half is in the welkin — the other in the wave : 
By Him to meet that bird mid -air, the misty morn 

was driven, 
Lest it should break away from earth and sing it - 

self to heaven ; 
He sowed the Grand Armada like grain upon the 

breeze, 
But gave to lark and lightning the freedom of the 

seas ! 



The cattle asleep in the meadow and the shadows 

asleep on the hill, 
And the mists, like gray Franciscans, all standing 

ghostly still — 
And the stars are drowsilv shutting their eves as 

weary watchers will — 



86 THE SKYLARK. 

And the crescent moon in the west shows the flash 
of a silver shoe, 

As the steed that brought over the midnight is 
bearing it down the blue, 

And out of the silence and shadow there quivered 
the slenderest song, 

And a bird going up in the morning exultantly- 
followed along — 

And the mountains stood down in their places and 
the clouds all timidly clung, 

But a strand of Jehovah untwisted whereon the 
lost Pleiads are strung, 

When this bird with its music and motion, ere the 
dawn had blooded its breast, 

Up direct from the sod to the glory of God, tri- 
umphantly burst from the nest. 



BUNKER HILL. 



T 



the wail of the fife and the snarl of the drum 
Those Hedgers and Ditchers of Bunker Hill 



come, 
Down out of the battle with rumble and roll, 
Straight across the two ages, right into the soul, 
And bringing for captive the Day that they won 
With a deed that like Joshua halted the sun. 
Like bells in their towers tolled the guns from the 

town, 
Beat that low earthen bulwark so sullen and 

brown, 
As if Titans last night had plowed the one bout 
And abandoned the field for a Yankee redoubt ; 
But for token of life that the parapet gave 
They might as well play on Miles Standish's grave ! 
Then up the green hill rolled the red of the 

Georges 
And down the green vale rolled the grime of the 



forges — 



S7 



88 BUNKER HILL. 

Ten rods from the ridges hung the live surge, 
Not a murmur to meet it broke over the verge, 
But the click of flint-locks in the furrows along, 
And the chirp of a sparrow just singing her song. 
In the flash of an eye, as the dead shall be raised, 
The dull bastion kindled, the parapet blazed, 
And the musketry cracked, glowing hotter and 

higher, 
Like a forest of hemlock, its lashes of fire. 
And redder the scarlet and riven the ranks, 
And Putnam's guns hung, with a roar on the flanks. 
Now the battle grows dumb and the grenadiers 

wheel, 
'Tis the crash of clubbed musket, the thrust of 

cold steel, 
At bay all the way, while the guns held their 

breath, 
Foot to foot, eye to eye, with each other and 

Death. 
Call the roll, Sergeant Time ! Match the day if 

you can : 
Waterloo was for Britons — Bunker Hill is for man ! 



THE OLD VILLAGE CHOIR. 

I HAVE fancied sometimes the Bethel-bent beam 
That trembled to earth in the Patriarch's 
dream, 
Was a ladder of song in that wilderness rest 
From the pillow of stone to the blue of the Blest, 
And the angels descending to dwell with us here, 
" Old Hundred" and " Corinth " and "China" 
and " Mear." 



All the hearts are not dead nor under the sod 
That those breaths can blow open to Heaven and 

God. 
Ah, "Silver Street" flows by a bright shining 

road, — 
Oh, not to the hymns that in harmony flowed, 
But the sweet human psalms of the old-fashioned 

choir, 
To the girl that sang alto, the girl that sang air. 

89 



90 THE OLD VILLAGE CHOIR. 

44 Let us sing to God's praise ! " the minister said : 
All the psalm-books at once fluttered open at 

" York," 
Sunned their long dotted wings in the words that 

he read, 
While the leader leaped into the tune just ahead, 
And politely picked up the key - note with a fork. 
And the vicious old viol went growling along 
At the heels of the girls in the rear of the song. 

Oh, I need not a wing ; — bid no genii come 

With a wonderful web from Arabian loom, 

To bear me again up the river of Time, 

When the world was in rhythm and life was its 

rhyme, 
And the stream of the years flowed so noiseless 

and narrow 
That across it there floated the song of a sparrow ; 
For a sprig of green caraway carries me there, 
To the old village church and the old village choir, 
Where clear of the floor my feet slowly swung 
And timed the sweet pulse of the praise that they 

sung, 



THE OLD VILLAGE CHOIR. 91 

Till the glory aslant from the afternoon sun 
Seemed the rafters of gold in God's temple begun ! 

You may smile at the nasals of old Deacon Brown 
Who followed by scent till he ran the tune down, 
And dear sister Green, with more goodness than 

grace, 
Rose and fell on the tunes as she stood in her 

place, 
And where " Coronation" exultantly flows, 
Tried to reach the high notes on the tips of her 

toes ! 
To the land of the leal they have gone with their 

song, 
Where the choir and the chorus together belong. 
Oh ! be lifted, ye gates ! Let me hear them again, 
Blessed song ! Blessed Singers ! forever, Amen. 



GOING HOME. 

TARAWN by horses with decorous feet, 
-*-^ A carriage for one went through the street ; 
Polished as anthracite out of the mine, 
Tossing its plumes so stately and fine, 
As nods to the night a Norway pine. 

The passenger lay in Parian rest, 
As if, by the Sculptor 's hand caressed, 
A mortal life through the marble stole, 
And then till an Angel calls the roll 
It waits awhile for a human soul. 

He rode in state, but his carriage - fare 
Was left unpaid to his only heir; 
Hardly a man from hovel to throne 
Takes to this route in coach of his own, 
But borrows at last and travels alone. 

92 



going home. 93 

The driver sat in his silent seat, 
The world as still as a field of wheat 
Gave all the road to the speechless twain, 
And thought the passenger never again 
Should travel that way with living men. 

Not a robin held its little breath, 
But sang right on in the face of death ; 
You never would dream to see the sky 
Give glance for glance to the violet 's eye, 
That aught between them ever could die. 

A wain bound East met the hearse bound West, 
Halted a moment, and passed abreast ; 
And I verily think a stranger pair 
Have never met on a thoroughfare, 
Or a dim by-road, or anywhere: 



The hearse as slim and glossy and still 
As silken thread at a woman's will, 
"Who watches her work with tears unshed, 
Broiders a grief with needle and thread, 
Mourns in pansies and c}~press the dead ; 



94 GOING HOME. 

Spotless the steeds in a satin dress, 

That run for two worlds, the Lord 's Express 

Long as the route of Arcturus's ray, 

Brief as the Publican's trying to pray, 

No other steeds by no other way 

Could go so far in a single day. 

From wagon broad and heavy and rude 
A group looking out from a single hood : 
Striped with the flirt of a heedless lash, 
Dappled and dimmed with many a splash, 
" Gathered " behind like an old calash, 

It made you think of a schooner 's sail 
Mildewed with weather, tattered by gale, 
Down "by the run " from mizzen and main- 
That canvas mapped with stipple and stain 
Of Western earth and the prairie rain. 

The watch - dog walked in his ribs between 
The hinder wheels with sleepy mien ; 
A dangling pail to the axle slung ; 
Astern of the wain a manger hung — 
A schooner 's boat by the davits swung. 



GOING HOME. 95 

The white - faced boys sat three in a row, 
With eyes of wonder and heads of tow ; 
Father looked sadly over his brood : 
Mother just lifted a flap of the hood; 
All saw the hearse — and two understood. 

They thought of the one - eyed cabin small, - 
Hid like a nest in the grasses tall, 
Where plains swept boldly off in the air, 
Grooved into heaven everywhere — 
So near the stars' invisible stair 

That planets and prairie almost met — 
Just cleared its edges as they set ! 
They thought of the level world 's " divide," 
And their hearts flowed down its other side 
To the little grave of the girl that died. 

They thought of childhood 's neighborly hills 
With sunshine aprons and ribbons of rills, 
That drew so near when the day went down, 
Put on a crimson and golden crown 
And sat together in mantles brown ; 



96 GOING HOME. 

The dawn's red plume in their winter caps, 
And Night asleep in their drowsy laps, 
Light 'ning the load of the shouldered wood 
By shedding the shadows as they could, 
That gathered round where the homestead stood. 

They thought — - that pair in the rugged wain, 
Thinking with bosom rather than brain ; 
They '11 never know till their dying day 
That what they thought and never could say, 
Their hearts throbbed out in an Alpine lay, 
The old Waldensian song again : 
Thank God for the mountains, and Amen ! 

The wain gave a lurch, the hearse moved on — 
A moment or two, and both were gone ; 
The wain bound East, the hearse bound West, 
Both going home, both looking for rest, — - 
The Lord save all, and His name be blest ! 



o 



THE DEAD GRENADIER. 

N the right of the battalion a grenadier of 
France, 
Struck through his iron harness by the lightning 

of a lance, 
His breast all wet with British blood, his brow with 

British breath, 
There fell defiant, face to face with England and 

with death. 
They made a mitre of his heart — they cleft it 

through and through — 
One half was for his legion, and the other for it 

too! 
The colors of a later day prophetic fingers shed, 
For lips were blue and cheeks were white and the 

fleur de lis was red ! 
And the bugles blew, and the legion wheeled, and 

the grenadier was dead. 

G 97 



98 THE DEAD GRENADIER. 

And then the old commander rode slowly down 

the ranks, 
And thought how brief the journey grew, between 

the battered flanks ; 
And the shadows in the moonlight fell strangely 

into line 
Where the battle's reddest riot pledged the richest 

of the wine, 
And the camp-fires flung their phantoms — all 

doing what they could 
To close the flinty columns up as old campaigners 

would ! 
On he rode, the old commander, with the ensign 

in advance, 
And, as statued bronzes brighten with the smoky 

torch's glance, 
Flashed a light in all their faces, like the flashing 

of a lance, 
When, with brow all bare and solemn, " For the 

King ! " he grandly said, 
" Lower the colors to the living — beat the ruffle 

for the dead ! " 



THE DEAD GREXADIER. 99 

And thrice the red silk flickered low its flame of 

royal fire, 
And thrice the drums moaned out aloud the 

mourner's wild desire. 
Ay, lower again thou crimson cloud — again ye 

drums lament — 
'Tis Rachel in the wilderness and Ramah in the 

tent ! 

"Close up! Right dress!" the Captain said, and 

they gathered under the moon, 
As the shadows glide together when the sun shines 

down at noon — 
A stranger at each soldier's right — ah, war's wild 

work is grim ! — 
And so to the last of the broken line, and Death at 

the riQ'ht of him ! 
And there, in the silence deep and dead, the Ser- 
geant called the roll, 
And the name went wandering down the lines as 

he called a passing soul. 
Oh, then that a friendly mountain that summons 

might have heard, 



100 TH E DEAD GRENADIER. 

And flung across the desert dumb the shadow of 

the word, 
And caught the name that all forlorn along the 

legion ran, 
And clasped it to its mighty heart and sent it back 

to man ! 

There it stood, the battered legion, while the Ser- 
geant called the roll, 
And the name went wandering down the lines as 

he called for a passing soul. 
Hurrah for the dumb, dead lion ! And a voice for 

the grenadier 
Rolled out of the ranks like a drum -beat, and 

sturdily answered " here! " 
" He stood," cried the sons of thunder, and their 

hearts ran over the brim, 
" He stood by the old battalion, and we'll always 

stand by him ! 
" Ay, call for the grand crusader, and we '11 answer 

to the name." 
" And what will ye say ? " the Sergeant said. 

" Dead on the field of fame ! " 



THE DEAD GRENADIER. 101 

And dare ye call that dying ? The dignity sub- 
lime 

That gains a furlough from the grave, and then 
reports to Time ? 

Doth earth give up the daisies to a little sun and 
rain, 

And keep at their roots the heroes while weary 
ages wane ? 

Sling up the trumpet, Israfeel ! Sweet bugler of 
our God, 

For nothing waits thy summons beneath this bro- 
ken sod ; 

They march abreast with the ages to the thunder 
on the right, 

For they bade the world " Good morning" when 
the world had said " Good night ! " 



RHYMES OF THE RIVER. 

H River far -flowing, 
How broad thou art growing ! 
And the sentinel head - lands wait grimly for thee ; 
And Euroclydon urges 
The bold -riding surges, 
That in white - crested lines gallop in from the sea 

O bright - hearted river, 

With crystalline quiver, 
Like a sword from its scabbard, far - flashing 
abroad ! 

And I think, as I gaze 

On the tremulous blaze, 
That thou surely wert drawn by an angel of God ! 

Through the black -heart of night, 
Leaping out to the light, 

102 



RHYMES OF THE RIVER. 103 

Thou art reeking with sunset and dyed with the 
dawn ; 
Cleft the emerald sod — 
Cleft the mountains of God — 

And the shadows of roses yet rusted thereon ! 

Where willows are weeping, 
Where shadows are sleeping, 
Where the frown of the mountain lies dark on thy 
crest ; 
Arcturus now shining, 

Arbutus now twining, 
And " my castles in Spain " gleaming down in thy 
breast ; 

Then disastered and dim, 
Swinging sullen and grim, 
Where the old ragged shadows of hovels are 
shed ; 
Creeping in, creeping out, 
As in dream, or in doubt, 
In the reeds and the rushes slow rocking the 
dead. 



I 

104 RHYMES OF THE RIVER. 

When all crimson and gold, 

Slowly home to the fold 
Do the fleecy clouds flock to the gateway of 
even, 

Then, no longer brook - born, 

But a way paved with morn, 
Ay, a bright golden street to the city of Heaven • 

In the great stony heart 

Of the feverish mart, 
Is the throb of thy pulses pellucid, to-day ; 

By gray mossy ledges, 

By green velvet edges, 
Where the corn waves its sabre, thou glidest 
away. 

Broad and brave, deep and strong, 

Thou art lapsing along ; 
And the stars rise and fall in thy turbulent tide, 

As light as the drifted 

White swan 's breast is lifted, 
Or a June fleet of lilies at anchor may ride. 



RHYMES OF THE RIVER. 105 

And yet, gallant river, 

On -flashing forever, 
That hast cleft the broad world on thy way to the 
main, 

I would part from thee here, 

With a smile and a tear, 
And a Hebrew, read back to thy fountains again. 

Ah, well I remember, 

Ere dying December 
Would fall like a snow-flake and melt on thy 
breast, 

O 'er thy waters so narrow 

The little brown sparrow 
Used to send his low song to his mate on the nest. 

With a silvery skein 

Wove of snow and of rain, 
Thou didst wander at will through the bud -laden 
land, — 

All the air a sweet psalm, 

And the meadow a palm, — 
As a blue vein meanders a liberal hand. 



106 RHYMES OF THE RIVER. 

When the school - master's daughter 

With her hands scooped the water, 
And laughingly proffered the crystal to me, 

Oh, there ne 'er sparkled up 

A more exquisite cup 
Than the pair of white hands that were brimming 
with thee ! 

And there all together, 

In bright summer weather, 
Did we loiter with thee along thy green brink ; 

And how silent we grew 

If the robin came too, 
When he looked up to pray, and then bent down 
to drink ! 

Ah, where are the faces, 

From out thy still places, 
That so often smiled back in those soft days of 
May? 

As we bent hand in hand, 

Thou didst double the band, 
As idle as daisies — and fleeting as they ! 



RHYMES OF THE RIVER. 107 

Like the dawn in the cloud 
Lay the babe in its shroud, 
And a rose - bud was clasped in its frozen white 
hand : — 
At the mother's last look 
It had opened the book, 
As if sweet -breathing June were abroad in the 
land! 

O pure placid river 

Make music forever 
In the gardens of Paradise, hard by the throne ! 

For on thy far shore, 

Gently drifted before, 
We may find the lost blossoms that once were our 
own. 

Ah, beautiful river, 

Flow onward forever ! 
Thou art grander than Avon, and sweeter than Ayr ; 

If a tree has been shaken, 

If a star has been taken, 
In thy bosom we look — bud and Pleiad are there ! 



108 RHYMES OF THE RIVER. 

I take up the old words, 

Like the song of dead birds, 
That were breathed when I stood farther off from 
the sea : 

When I heard not its hymn, 

When the headlands were dim : — - 
Shall I ever again weave a rhythm for thee ? 



LAZY 



TNDER the maple tree lying supine, 
^ Timing the beat of a pendulum vine, 
Swinging the Delawares turning to wine. 



Gazing straight upward a mile in the blue, 
Watching a cloud that has nothing to do, 
Wishing a deed for an acre or two ; 

Nothing to do but come down in the rain, 
Born of the mist unto Heaven again, 
Nothing to sow and no reaping of grain. 

Watching a bee in his pollen pant'loon 
Droning him home in the chiysolite noon, 
Ghost of a drummer -boy drumming a tune. 

Watching a jay on the cherry tree nigh, 
Stranger to love, with its cruel bright e}~e ; 
What of that jacket as blue as the sky ? 

109 



HO LAZY. 

Splashing his crest with the cherry's red blood, 
Jauntiest robber that ranges the wood, 
Nothing will name him but blue Robin Hood. 

Hearing a bird with her English all right 
Calling somebody from morning till night, 
Waiting forever the mystic " Bob White." 

Woman's own cousin since Adam began, 
Beautiful Voice that is wanting a man, 
Quail in a coif of the time of Queen Anne. 

Counting the leaves as they drift from the rose 
S trowing with fragrance my place of repose ; 
Dying ? Ah no, only changing its clothes. 

Watching a spider pay out her last line, 
Working at Euclid's Geometry fine, 
Web is all woven and weaver will dine ! 

Watching a fly laze along to its doom, 
Silken the meshes but death in the loom, 
Shrouded and eaten but never a tomb ! 



LAZY. \\\ 

Watching a butterfly slowly unfold, 
Crowning a post with a blossom of gold 
Strange as the rod that did blossom of old. 

Hinged on a life is the duplicate page, 
Lettered in lio-lit by a wiser than sa^e, 
Lasting a summer and read for an age. 

Burst from the bonds ! For that coffin was thine, 
Tenantless thing where the sycamores shine, 
Riven and rent and the worm is divine ! 

Born from the dust and its veriest slave, 
Hail to the herald direct from the grave ! 
Pinion of beauty, resplendently wave ! 

Bringing from far, what no angel could say, 
Something of them who have vanished away, 
Left me alone on this amethyst day. 

Rent is the chrysalis hid in the sod, 
All the dear tenantry dwelling abroad, 
Gone through the gate of the glory of God ! 



DEARBORN OBSERVATORY. 

I ^ROM my chamber last night I looked out on 
■*■ the sky 

No mortal can reach without waiting to die, 
And I saw a few ships of Infinity's fleet, 
And the light at their bows lit the dew in the street 
That dying men crush with irreverent feet. 
Broadside to this port ridged and roughened with 

graves, 
Not a boat from the shore, not a gun from the 

waves, 
There they lay off and on in the Blue of the Blest 
Like the thoughts of the Lord in His sabbath - day 

rest ! 
Are we chained here for life ? Are we bound to 

the clod 
When the lark with a song springs direct from the 

sod 
To the breakers of day and the glory of God ? 

112 



DEA RB OR A ' OB SER FA TOR Y. 1 1 3 

I lave }*oii heard of the man who was calling the roll 
Of the stars till the Seraphim called for his sonl •? 
Who began the Lord's census and prayed for clear 

night 
While he counted for life the squadrons of light? 
Do you know how the Pleiads made sail at the 

word 
And Arcturus bore down, till he fancied he heard 
The wash of the sky as it rocked off a shore 
It never had touched at a signal before ! 
Port of Entry for stars ! Where great admirals 

come 
And flotillas report to a Herschel at home — 
In that wonderful tower whose window commands 
Xot a thing in the universe fashioned with hands. 
There 's an eye at the window that never can sleep, 
That no ages can dim and that never can weep — 
Always gazing at life, never seeing the graves, 
Though the land with its tombs mocks the sea with 

its waves — 
That beckons a world and it dawns into sight, 
Gives a glance at the blue and it sparkles with 

light, 

H 



114 DEARBORN OBSERVATORY. 

Sweeps a field that the Lord had forgotten to sow 
When He scattered the worlds like His treasures 

of snow, 
And a sun blossoms out of the infinite space 
Like the first flower of Spring in God's garden of 

grace. 
Oh, second Fort Dearborn ! Oh, Lookout sublime I 
Stand fast till God's morning shall break upon time ! 



JENNIE JUNE. 

IKE a foundling in slumber, the summer day 
-L- lay 

On the crimsoning threshold of even, 
And I thought that the glow through the azure- 
arched way 

Was a glimpse of the coming of Heaven. 
There together we sat by the beautiful stream, 
We had nothing to do but to love and to dream 

In the days that have gone on before, 
These are not the same days, though they bear the 
same name, 

With the ones I shall welcome no more. 

But it may be that angels are culling them o'er 
For a Sabbath and summer forever ; 

When the years shall forget the Decembers they 
wore, 
And the shroud shall be woven, no, never. 

115 



116 JENNIE JUNE. 

In a twilight like that, Jennie June for a bride, 
Oh ! what more of the world could one wish for 
beside, 

As we gazed on the river unrolled, 
Till we heard, or we fancied, its musical tide 

When it flowed through the gateway of gold ! 

" Jennie June," then I said, " let us linger no more 

" On the banks of the beautiful river ; 
" Let the boat be unmoored, and be muffled the 
oar, 

" And we '11 steal into heaven together. 
44 If the angel on duty our coming descries, 
" You have nothing to do but throw off the disguise 

44 That you wore while you wandered with me, 
44 And the sentry shall say, 4 Welcome back to the 
skies, 

44 4 We long have been waiting for thee.' " 

Oh, how sweetly she spoke, ere she uttered a word, 
With that blush, partly hers, partly even's ; 

And a tone like the dream of a song we once heard, 
As she whispered, 44 This way is not heaven's, 



JENNIE JUNE. 117 

" For the river that runs by the realm of the blest 
" Has no song on its ripple, no star on its breast : 

" Oh ! that river is nothing like this : 
" For it glides on in shadow, beyond the world's 

West, 

" Till it breaks into beauty and bliss." 

■* 

I am lingering yet, but I linger alone, 
On the banks of the beautiful river : 

'Tis the twin of that day, but the wave where it 
shone 
Bears the willow -tree's shadow for ever. 



BURNS' CENTURY SONG, 

I. 

TJ OPE, her starry vigil keeping 
* -*• O'er a Campbell by the Clyde — 
By the Tweed a " Wizard " sleeping — 

" Shepherd" by the Yarrow's side- — 
Land of glory, song, and story, 
Land of mountains and of men, 

Did ye dream that Song could die ? 
Banks and braes be glad again, 

Robert Burns is passing by ! 

Everywhere, everywhere, 
Smiles will break and tears will start, 
Making rainbows round the heart, 

Ploughman, Brother, Bard of Ayr ! 

118 



BURNS' CENTURY SONG. 1 19 

II. 

Heart of leal ! Can this be dying, 

Coming thus sublimely down ! 
Lo, an hundred winters sighing 

Leave unstrown thy holly crown ! 
Not in sorrow dawns thy morrow, 
" Bonny Jean" is by thy side, 

Making life and love keep time ; 
Beauty be thy deathless bride, 

Weaving all our hearts in rhyme ! 



rn. 



Heavy heart and smoky rafter 

Growing light with Burns's song — 
Calmer tears and clearer laughter — 

Plaided bosoms brave and strong ; 
Birds are singing, blue - bells ringing, 
Naked Heart in open palm ! 

With thy " days of auld lang syne," 
With thy Cotter's evening Psalm, 

Thou hast made all ages thine. 



120 BURNS' CENTURY SONG. 

IV. 

Now the thrush's silver sonnet 

Trembling from the blossom'd thorn, 
Winter floating white upon it — 

Sweetest Lyric ever born ! 
Bruce is breaking — Wallace waking, 
From the clasp of mighty Death, 

Morven swells the Doric song ! — 
Lads' and lassies' blended breath, , 

Gushes sweet all summer long ! 



v. 

O'er the daisy in the furrow 

Bending low with loving words — 
By the mouse's broken burrow — 

Songs of burnies and of birds — 
Breezes blowing — rivers flowing — 
Hark, the beat of bonny Doon, 

Logan, Devon, Afton, Ayr, 
Braided in a pleasant tune, 

" Highland Mary" in the choir ! 



BU£NS % CENTURY SONG. 121 

Everywhere, everywhere, 
Smiles will break and tears will start, 
Making rainbows round the heart, 
Ploughman, Brother, Baud of Aye, ! 



THE COLORED MARBLE. 

ON marble beds where violets die 
And the moss rose pillows its pride, 
The marble looks like an azure sky 
Where a cloudless day has died. 

The years go by, and out of the shroud 
The statue stands naked in noon ; 

Out of the tint and out of the cloud 
Of a long - forgotten June ! 



122 



FLO WER%. 



T^LOWERS bloom in Christ's Sermon, and all 

■** the ) r ear long 

Yon can gather a " Sharon " from Solomon's Song. 



123 



THE NEW CRAFT IN THE OFFING. 



) r I ^ WAS a beautiful night on a beautiful deep, 



nr 



And the man at the helm had just fallen 

asleep, 
And the watch on the deck, with his head on his 

breast, 
Was beginning to dream that another's it pressed, 
When the look-out aloft cried, "A sail! ho! a 

sail!" 
And the question and answer went rattling like 

hail : 
"A sail! ho! a sail!" "Where away?" " No'th- 

no'th-West!" 
" Make her out ?" " No, your honor." The din 

drowned the rest. 



There indeed is the stranger, the first in these seas, 
Yet she drives boldly on in the teeth of the breeze. 

124 



THE NEW CRAFT IN THE OFFING. 1 -JT> 

Now her bows to the breakers she steadily turns, 

Oh ! how brightly the light of her binnacle burns ! 

Not a signal for Saturn this rover lias given, 

No salute for our Venus, the flag-star of heaven ; 

Not a rag or a ribbon adorning her spars, 

She has saucily sailed by " the red planet Mars ;" 

She has doubled triumphant the cape of the Sun 

And the sentinel stars, without firing a gun ! 

" Helm a -port ! " " Show a light ! " " She will 

run us aground ! " 
" Fire a gun ! " " Bring her to ! " " Sail a-hoy ! " 

u Whither bound ? " 

Avast there, ye lubbers ! Leave the rudder alone : 
'Tis a craft in commission — the Admiral's own ; 
And she sails with sealed orders, unopened as 

yet, 
Though her anchors she weighed before Lucifer 

set. 
Ah, she sails by a chart no draughtsman could 

make, 
Where each cloud that can trail and each wave 

that can break ; 



126 THE NEW CRAFT IN THE OFFING. 

Where that sparkling flotilla, the Asteroids, lie, 
Where the scarf of red Morning is flung on the sky ; 
Where the breath of the sparrow is staining the 

air — ■ 
On the chart that she bears you will find them all 

there ! 
Let her pass on in peace to the port whence she 

came, 
With her trackings of fire and her streamers of 

flame ! 



THE VANE ON THE SPIRE. 



r I ^HERE 'S an arrow aloft with a feather' d shaft 
■*■ That never has flown at the bow-string's 

draft, 
And the goldsmith has hidden the blacksmith's 

craft. 



For its heart is of iron, its gleam of gold, 
It is pointed to pierce and barbed to hold. 
And its wonderful story is hardly told. 



It is poised on a finger from sun to sun, 
And it catches the glimmer of dawn begun, 
And is floating in light when the da} r is done. 



And it turns at the touch of a viewless hand. 
And it swings in the air like a wizard's wand, 
By the tempest whirled and the zephyr fanned. 

127 



128 THE VANE ON THE SPIRE. 

And the sinewy finger that cannot tire 
Is the lifted hush of the old church spire 
That vanishes out as heaven is nigher ; 

And the arrow upon it the rusted vane 
As true to its master as faith to fane, 
That is swinging forever in sun and rain. 

Right about to the North ! And the trumpets blow 

And the shivering air is dim with snow, . 

And the earth grows dumb and the brooks run slow $ 

And the shaggy Arctic, chilled to the bone, 
Is craunching the world with a human moan, 
And the clank of a chain in the frozen zone ; 

And the world is dead in its seamless shroud, 
And the stars wink slow in the rifted cloud, 
And the owl in the oak complains aloud. 

But the arrow is true to the iceberg's realm, 
As the rudder staunch in the ghastly whelm 
With a hero by to handle the helm ! 



77//-' VANE ON THE SPIRE. 129 

Is it welded with frost as iron with fire ? 
Up with a blue-jacket ! Clamber the spire 
And swing it around to the point of desire! 

It sways to the East ! And the icy rain 

With the storm's iw long roll*' on the window pane 

And a diamond point on the crystal vane. 

And the cattle stand with the wind astern, 
And the routes of the rain on eave and urn — 
As the drops are halted and frozen in turn — 

Are such pendants of wonder as cave and mine 
Never gave to the gaze when the torches shine, 
But right out of Heaven and half divine ! 

Ah, it swings due South to the zephyr's thrill ! 

In the yellow noon it lies as still 

As a speckled trout by the drowsy mill, 

While tlic bugle of Gabriel wakes the sod 
And the beautiful life in the speechless clod, 
'Till the crowded June is a smile for God ! 
I 



130 THE VANE ON THE SPIRE. 

Resurrection to-day ! For the roses spoke ! 
Resurrection to - day ! For the rugged oak 
In a live green billow rolled and broke. 

And the spider feels for her silken strings, 

And the honey-bee hums and the world has wings, 

And blent with the blue the bluebird sings. 

While the cloud is ablaze with the bended bow, 
And the waters white with the lilies' snow, 
On the motionless arrow, all in a row, 

Are four little sparrows that pipe so small 
Their carol distils as the dew-drops fall, 
And we only see they are singing at all ! 

Now the arrow is swung with a sweep so bold 
Where the Day has been flinging his garments gold 
'Till they stain the sky with a glow untold. 

Ah, the cardinal point of the wind is West ! 
And the clouds bear down in a fleet abreast, 
And the world is as still as a child at rest ! 



THE VANE ON THE SPIRE. \<&\ 

There's a binnacle light like an angrj star, 
And the growl of a gun with its crash and jar, 
And the roll of a drum where the angels are ! 

And it tumbles its freight on the dancing grain, 
And it beats into blossom the buds again, 
And it brightens a world baptized in rain, 

And it gladdens the earth as it drifts along, 
And the meadow is green and the corn is strong, 
And the brook breaks forth in the same old son or ! 



•& 



And I looked for the arrow — it hung there yet, 
With the drops of the rain its barb was wet, 
And the sun shone out in a crimson set ; 

And behold, aloft in the ruddy shine 
Where the crystal water again was wine, 
And it hallowed the dart like a touch divine ! 

Under the sun and under the moon, 
Silver at midnight, golden at noon, 

Could Dian have lost it out of her hair ? 

Phcebus's quiver have shaken it there ? 

That wonderful arrow sweeping the air ! 



o 



DECORATION DAY. 

H, be dumb all ye clouds 

As the dead in their shrouds, 
Let your pulses of thunder die softly away, 
Ye have nothing to do 
But to drift round the blue, 
For the emerald world grants a furlough to - day ! 

Bud, blossom, and flower 

All blended in shower, 
In the grandest and gentlest of rains shall be shed 

On the acres of God 

With their billows of sod 
Breaking: breathless and beautiful over the dead ! 

They do flush the broad land 
With the flower -laden hand, 

132 



DECORATION DAY. 138 

Drift the dimples of graves with the colors of even ; 
Where a Boy in Blue dreams 
A " Forget-me-not" gleams — 

No rain half so sweet ever fell out of Heaven ! 

From no angel was caught 

The magnificent thought 
To pluck daisies and roses, those bravest of things, — 

For they stand all the while 

In their graves with a smile, — 
And to strew with live fragrance dead lions and 
kings ! 

It was somebody horn, 

It was Rachel forlorn, 
Twas the love they named Mary, the trust they 
called Ruth ; 

"T was a woman who told 

That the blossoms unfold 
A defiance to death and a challenge for truth ; 

That the violet's eye, 

Though it sleep, by and by 
Shall watch out the long age in the splendor of 
youth. 



134 DECORA TION DA Y. 

Ah, she hallowed the hour 

When she gathered the flower ; 
When she said, " This shall emblem the fame of 
my brave ! " 

When she thought, " This shall borrow 

" Brighter azure to-morrow ;" 
When she laid it to - day on the crest of a grave ! 



A 



A WINTER PSALM. 

SONG for the meek old Mountains — the 
Mountains grand and strong, 
That lifted winter clear of earth all spring and 

summer long, 
And made it gay with evergreen, and then with 

one accord 
The} r shouldered the snows in silence and stood 

before the Lord. 

The)' did it for the roses' sake — that robins might 

be born, 
And Indian gold might flash along the rank and 

file of corn, 
And sheafy wigwam everywhere lift up its tawny 

cone, 
And Rachel sing the .harvest home where harvest 

moons had shone ; 

135 



136 A WINTER PSALM. 

They did it for the little graves — bade flowers 

and children say, 
We '11 smile together by and by and fill the world 

with May ! 

Well done for the grim old Mountains ! And well 
for the King who laid 

Upon their shoulders stout and brave his gold and 
crimson blade. 

'T was meet that the princely Morning, with ban- 
ners all unfurled, 

Should knight them with his royal touch across 
the blushing world. 

As softly as on mountain air beatitudes were 

shed, 
As gently as the lilies bud among the words He 

said, 
So did the dear old Mountains lay the sparkling 

winter down 
Upon the poor dumb bosom of a world so bare and 

brown — 



A WINTER PSALM. \:\~ 

So noiselessly and silently, such radiance and rest ! 
As if a snowy wing should fold upon a sparrow V 
breast. 

Far through the dim uncertain air, as still as asters 

blow, 
The downy drow r sy feet untold tread out the world 

we know ; 
Upon the pine's green fingers set, flake after flake 

they land, 
And flicker with a feeble light amid the shadowy 

band ; 
Upon the meadows broad and brown where maids 

and mowers sung ; 
Upon the meadows gay with gold the dandelions 

flung ; 
Upon the farmyard's homely realm, on ricks and 

rugged bars. 
Till riven oak and strawy heap were domes and 

silver spars ; 
The cottage was an eastern dream with alabaster 

eaves, 
And lilacs growing round about witli diamonds for 

leaves ; 



138 



A WINTER PSALM. 



The well- sweep gray above the roof a silver accent 
stood, 

And silver willows wept their way to meet a silver 
wood ; 

The russet groves had blossomed white and budded 
full with stars, 

The fences were in uniform, the gate-posts were 
hussars ; 

The chimneys were in turbans all, with plumes of 
crimson smoke, 

And the costly breaths were silver when the laugh- 
ing children spoke ; 

And gem and jewel everywhere along the tethers 
strung 

Where mantling roses once had climbed and morn- 
ing glories swung. 

So through the dim, uncertain air, as still as asters 
blow, 

The downy drowsy feet untold tread out the world 
we know. 



The glimmer of the violet's eye goes out beneath 
their tread, 



./ WINTER PSALM. \\\\\ 

White silence lines the ringing street and drifts 

around the dead, 
Bui more than all they trample out the crooked 

paths of men, 
And make the stained and wrinkled world all clean 

and young again ! 
The summer rain hath won sweet song from many 

a tuneful soul 
Since God did paint day's alphabet npon the cloudy 

scroll, 
But who for the snow shall give us one grand 

angelic psalm, 
The beautiful feet of the snow — the feet so pure 

and calm ? 

Thanks be to God for winter time ! That bore the 
Mayflower up, 

To pour amid New England snows the treasures 
of its cup, 

To fold them in its icy arms, those sturdy Pilgrim 
sires, 

And weld an iron brotherhood around their Christ- 
mas fires ! 



140 A WINTER PSALM. 

Thanks be to God for winter time ! How strong 
the pulses play, 

And ah, the pulses of the bells are not less sweet 
than they ! 

Dear heart of winter, throb again with old melo- 
dious beat, 

Around thy glow for ever heard the pla} 7 " of 
childhood's feet, 

Worn smooth and beautiful the Rock where later 
Pilgrims come 

To harvest all their loves and hopes around the 
hearth of home I 



SAILING OF COLUMBUS. 

T i\ [MORTAL they made it, if any thing could, 
-*- That wonderful day when Columbus's brood 
Slipped silently out from the earth's azure eaves, — 
Like a flock of young swallows when summer-time 

leaves, 
And plumed up their pinions and parted the blue, 
And the sky was unrent, and the trinity through ! 
Shook off the old world and shook out for the new ! 
Were they shrived ere they went ? Were their 

sins all forgiven ? 
For they '11 flutter their wings at the windows of 

Heaven ! 
Hark ! The Admiral's hail : " World ahoy ! Whither 

bound ? " 
And the answer comes back on a breaker of sound, 
And the flag of the Andes in fire is unfurled, 
And Niagara's thunder of welcome is hurled, 
•* We 're at anchor, your honor ! It is Liberty's 

World ! " 

141 



THE CHRYSALIS. 

COFFIN gray and spotted with gold 
With a mulberry leaf for bier, 
And silken shroud with a silver fold, 
On a shelf is lying near. 

They say when April comes to the door, 
And the blue -eyed foundlings wake, 

The humble thing that was dead before 
From its silken sleep shall break ; 

A folio flower, in duplicate done, 
Like the face in the eyes of a wife, 

Two leaves shall open slow in the sun 
With a dissyllabic life. 



142 



o 



THE FLAG. 

H, glimpse of clear heaven, 
Artillery riven, 
The Fathers' old fallow God seeded with stars. 
Thy furrows were turning 
When plowshares were burning, 
And the half of each bout is redder than Mars ! 

Flaunt forever thy story 

Oh, wardrobe of glory ! 
Where the Fathers laid down their mantles of blue. 

And challenged the ages, — 

Oh, grandest of gages ! — 
In covenant solemn, eternal, and true. 



THE HERO OE NEW HAMBURG. 

r I ^HE grandest charge of cavalry 

-*■ That ever was seen or sung 
The solitary trooper made 

Who spoke in the Latin tongue. 
Bring out your Roman rider 

Who carried the Gulf by storm, 
And the dumb earth closed forever 

And shrouded his vanished form ; 
Sowed like the seed that has fallen, 

'Mid the multitude's acclaim, 
How it blossomed through the ages 

Till it ripened into fame ! 

I can match your daring rider, 
Tell the Roman not to wait ! 

There 's another hard behind him 
Drawing rein at Glory's gate I 

144 



THE HERO OF NEW HAMBURG. 

Comes the deathless Engineer, 

Clears the ages at a leap, 
Crowds the flock of years together 
As a shepherd folds his sheep — 
Right across historic pages 

With a clatter and a clank, 
Craunches time to scintillations, 
Closes np the broken rank, 
Smites the Roman in the flank ! 



145 



Nevermore shall mighty boatswain 

Pipe all hands with panting fire ; 
Sweep thy soul, oh lion-hearted, 

As Apollo swept the lyre ! 
Loose thy grasp, immortal Brakeman ! 

Flinging free the iron rein, 
Earth ! be taught articulation, 

Learn by heart the dread refrain, 
Jar and thunder back again ! 
Dare ye quench Elijah's chariot, 

Lightning touch and Titan tread ? 
Abandon every wheel and axle, 

Furl forever, flags of red ! 

J 



146 THE HERO OF NEW HAMBURG. 

Halt him not with battle lantern, 
Show a light as white as day ! 

Let him pass, O signal stations, 

His for aye " the right of way ! " 

Flanked by rugged rock and river, 

Death and double side by side — 
Hand upon the mighty bridle, 

See the gallant horseman ride ; 
See the ponderous creature coming, 

Sway and swing along the track, 
Brave postilion in the saddle, 

Flying chambers at his back — 
Chambers bright with hope and dreaming, 

Chambers dark with terror dire — 
Chambers ? Altars for a demon's 

Dreadful sacrifice of fire ! 



On it comes, the sinewed being, 
With its rider grand and calm, 

Watch and heart keep steady beating 
Like an old long-meter psalm ! 



THE HERO OF NEW HAMBURG. 147 

Stolen out of Eastern story, 

Garbed in brass, this Arab's dream 
Plunges through the tunneled thunder, 

Cambric needle through a seam ; 
Flickering dimly in the distance, 

Flaring broadly into sight 
With his dawn of human making, 

Break of day in heart of night ! 
Grumbling in the lairs of mountains, 

Roaring down the valley broad, 
Rounding out a sturdy headland, 

Blazing like a Grecian god ! 



Now this rider strangely changes — 
Touch him with a wizard's wand, 
He shall seem a wondrous gunner 

With the lanyard in his hand ; 
Taking sight across the kingdoms, 
Cloud by day, by night a flame, 
He trains his winged artillery, 
At a target taking aim. 
Sure to watch if not to pray, 



148 THE HERO OF NEW HAMBURG. 

Drift December, blossom May, 
At a target night and day, 
Full a thousand miles away 
Taking aim ! 

Columned smokes built high and mighty 

Colonnade the dome of night ; 
Kindles like a face the dial 

With the bursts of furnace light, 
And the rider at his window, 

Watching with a pleasant smile, 
Sees the friendly world to meet him 
Coming down the track the while, 
Sixty seconds make a mile ! 

Halt him on your rounds, ye Angels, 

Swinging wide the lights of God ! 
Watchmen, flash afar the signal, 

" Death is waiting down the road ! " 
Halt him with your dropping lanterns, 

Shed like stars from ripened sky — 
Halt him, glances red and lurid, 

Glaring like an angry eye ! 



THE HERO OF NEW HAMBURG. 149 

All run down the clocks of clanger, 

Dials with the sunshine passed ! 
Come the keen shrill cry and challenge, 

Death and Duty meet at last ! 
Now transfigured stands the rider, 

Flinging down his rude disguise, 
Sturdy hand upon the bridle, 

Telling how a hero dies. 
'' Hold her hard," he bade the brakeman, 

Clutched the monster by the throat 
Till the bell with sudden clangor 

Tolled as if the sexton smote. 
And the grand rebellious creature 

Plunged into the empty air, 
Swung him out to resurrection 

Clad in Fame's immortal wear ! 
Born alive to song and story 

Comes this Engineer again, 
Comes this man to plead for honor 

As the gage of kingly men ; 
Pleading that the grace of dying 

Is the rarest grace of all ; 
That the earth's sublimest heroes 

Never heard a bugle call ; 



150 THE HERO OE NEW HAMBURG. 

That the clock of Christ's own ages 
Never yet had sounded " one," 

If this planet's grandest jewel 
Had been nothing but a crown ! 

To his steed they lashed Mazeppa, 

Smithfield clanked with martyrs' chains, 
But this man, bound round with honor, 

Gathering up the iron reins, 
Free as Chimborazo's eagle 

Flaps his pinion over head, 
Charged forlorn at utter danger 

As if Death itself were dead ! 
Halt him not with battle lantern, 

Show a light as white as day ! 
Let him pass, signal stations, 

His for aye " the eight of way ! " 



THE GOSPEL OF THE OAK. 

W 'Alt TIME, 1863. 

T TP to the Sun magnificently near, 
^-^ The Lord did build a Californian oak, 
And took no Sabbath in the thousandth year, 

But build ed on until it bravely broke 
Into that realm wherein the morning light 
Walks to and fro upon the top of night ! 
Around that splendid shaft no hammers rang. 
Nor giants wrought nor truant angels sang, 
But gentle winds and painted birds did bear 
Its corner-stones of glory through the air ; 
Grand volumes green rolled up like cloudy weather. 
And birds and stars went in and out together ; 
When Day on errands from the Lord came down, 
It stepped from Heaven to that leafy crown ! 

God's mighty mast with all its sails unfurled. 
That ought to make a Druid of the world, 

151 



152 THE GOSPEL OF THE OAK. 

Some Vandal girdled with a zone of death, 
A life of ages perished in a breath ! 
Good night, Live Oak ! Proud admiral, farewell ! 
The world has wailed when meaner monarchs 
fell! 

The year went on, and with it marched sublime, 
Month after Month, the journeymen of Time. 
Then came the May, such wings as angels wear, 
Buds in her hands and blossoms in her hair : 
Above that oak she shook her flowing sleeves — 
The poor dead tree laughed out with living leaves ! 
Thank God ! Too vast, too grand to die forlorn 
It lived right on ! Brave heart of oak, good 
morn ! 

I 'd be a Roman for the omen grand 

That thunders on the left through all the land — 

God and the Fathers' tree forever stand ! 

Oh, growth immortal, reddened in the rain 

That beats out hearts as tempests beat the grain, 

All wrongs died out like breath upon a blade, 

A hunted world fled panting to thy shade, — 



THE GOSPEL OF THE OAK. 153 

Thy roots have searched earth's bosom all around, 
Felt out the graves that make it holy ground — 
Like living hands with love and faith been laid 
In benediction on the sleeping dead ! 



THE TWO JOHNS. 

T~AO you think we are crushed out of loving and 
*^* living 

By the fall of a clod, when the planet is giving 
To the delicate foot of an ounce of a wren, 
And then surges right up as she lifts it again ? 
Oh, Gibeon's Sun ! He is yet under orders, 
You can halt him to - day on death's gloomy bor- 
ders ; 
Bid brave thoughts and grand deeds the dead 

Joshua play — 
" Stand still, mighty Sun ! " and the blaze shall 
obey. 



Take a page of blind John that angels have 

tramped 
Till it looks as if stars broke ranks and encamped — 

154 



the viro johns. 155 

So strown about with fine gold from Ormus and 

Ind 
That you wonder how angels could ever have 

sinned, 
When old English brocade at such exquisite cost. 
To tell the strange story of " Paradise Lost " 
Did bankrupt the bard, so nothing remained 
To tell us the story of Eden " Regained." 
Look down on the page and declare if you can 
What business the grave-digger had with the 

man ! 
Dare Hamlet's own sexton, or one of his tribe, 
Lay an ounce of dead clay upon Cromwell's old 

scribe ? 
Those angels of his — they have put them to 

rout ! 
Those angels of his — they have lifted him out! 
As free of the ages as the winds of the waves, 
And abolished that gloomy old fashion of graves ! 

In this Christendom's realm, in some year of our 

Lord, 
Men attacked with a fagot the soul of a word ; 



156 



THE TWO JOHNS, 



Ah, hundreds of years Christmas carols were sung, 
Ere they dwelt in this world and spoke in our 

tongue 
Who groped in the ashes where martyrs were 

chained, 
If perchance a live coal of the embers remained, 
And they blew it to life in the name of the kings, 
And the books of this Milton all took to their 

wings 
Like his own bird -of- paradise, crimson and gold, 
And the princes grew warm as the ashes grew cold ! 
'T was as if some old Yandal should vainly aspire 
To strike David dumb by just burning his lyre ;— 
The books played Elijah — left their mantle be- 
hind, 
And it fell and unfurled, till it kindled mankind. 

And that Prince of all Pilgrims, the other twin 

John, — 
He will walk in his sleep till the ages are gone ; 
Blow softly, oh Angel ! Let him slumber right on. 
With the swing of the sledge for the music of flutes 
He beat up the world for celestial recruits ; — 



the two joiins. . 157 

He dreamed himself through to the " Beautiful 

Gate," 
With " Christian" for comrade and " Mercy" to 

wait. 

Time's sentries cry " halt ! " Hark the sturdy 

reply : 
Oh, be lifted, ye gates, for old Bunyan goes by ! 
Pass on, grand crusader ! Hearts warm to thy 

name — 
Good night to thy form but good morn to thy fame ! 



BEAUTIFUL "MAY." 



/^\H, have you not seen on some morning in June, 
^^ When the flowers were in tears and the 

forest in tune, 
And the billows of dawn broke bright on the air, 
On the breast of the brightest a star clinging there ? 
Some Sentinel Star, not ready to set, 
Forgetting to wane and watching there yet ? 
How you gazed on that vision of beauty awhile, 
How it wavered till won by the light of God's 

smile, 
How it passed through the portals of pearl like a 

bride, 
How it paled as it passed, and the Morning Star 

died ! 
The sky was all blushes, the world was all bliss, 
And the prayer of your heart, " Be my ending like 

this ! " 



158 



BE A U TIF UL ' ' MA V." \ 5 9 

80 my beautiful May passed away from life's even, 
So the blush of her being was blended with Heaven ; 
So the bird of my bosom fluttered up to the dawn — 
Ah, a window was open — my darling was gone — 
A truant from time, from tears, and from sin, 
For the angel on watch took the wanderer in ] 
When she warbles to me the New Song that she 

sin^s, 
I shall know her ao'ain notwithstanding her win^s. 
By those eyes full of heaven — by the light on her 

hair — 
And the smile she wore here she will surely wear 

there ! 



THE NORTHERN LIGHTS. 

* I ^O claim the Arctic came the Sun, 

-*- With banners of the burning zone ; 
Unrolled upon their airy spars 
They froze beneath the light of stars ; 
And there they float, those streamers old, 
Those Northern Lights, forever cold ! 



160 



INDIAN SUMMER. 

P*HEN past the yellow regiments of corn 
■*- There came an Indian Maiden, autumn born. 
And June returned and held her by the hand. 
And led Time's smiling Ruth through all the land ; 
A veil of golden air was o'er her flung, 
The South wind whispered and the robins sung. 



161 



THE SHATTERED RAINBOW. 

\ T 7 HEN blazed the trinket of the cloud abroad, 

^ * The bent and broken jewelry of God, 
That fragment of a ring — its other part 
Was lost, I dreamed, within the forest's heart. 
And when October came with eager clasp, 
The jewel shivered in his frost}'' grasp 
And showered the maples with celestial red — 
The oaks were sunsets though the days were dead, 
The green was gold, the willows drooped in wine, 
The ash was fire, the humblest shrub divine. 



162 



FIRE AND WATER. 

A j\ AGNIFICENT AGE ! When water and fire, 

IV J. ^j ie } am ij an d the lion, together conspire, 
And the atom of rain the robins are drinking 
Can set the dull iron to throbbing and thinking. 
It enters the heart of a ship in her sleep — 
There 's a cloud on the sky — a wake on the deep — 
There 's a soul in the oak that would kindle a 

king, 
And she crashes away without lifting a wing ! 

Take the old " Franklin press," where the dead 

were laid out, 
And the printer in mourning went plodding about, 
Till a creak and a groan broke the pages' repose, 
And the specters in sheets, one by one, in their 

clothes, 
To a late resurrection reluctantly rose ! 

163 



164 FIRE AND WATER, 

Now inspire the machine with flood and with flame, 

And call it a brother and give it a name ! 

It comes down to the work with a will and a 

clank, 
Strikes the types in the face and the wrongs in the 

flank; 
In the flash of an eye the creature has caught 
And kindled and glowed with the life of the 

thought ! 
Stand clear of the thing ! It is nearing the brink 
Where a being unborn is beginning to think ! 
It flutters its plumage, and drifts the world white- — 
And it snows down the ages its treasures of light ! 
It flutters its plumage — this marvelous bird, — 
Put a lock on your heart and beware of the word 
That it pulses abroad, for creation has heard. 
The lightning's vernacular thunder, is dumb, 
The bolts strike the word, talk English and come ; 
The surge tells the billow, the breakers repeat, 
Till the waves of the sea wash the words to your 

feet, 
Dry-shod from the anchorage down in the brine, 
Swung up by the cable, a creature divine. 



FIRE AMD WATER. 165 

See the forge's first -born with its sinews of steel, 
A nerve at each lever and axle and wheel, 
All ready to fly and just ready to feel, 
Pluck out of its caskets great handfuls of power. 
The Hocks of mankind all shorn in an hour 
And the fleeces just granted this Thing for a dower. 
To weave as it went a wonderful robe 
To be flung on the sea and apparel the globe ! 
Born last of a furnace and first of a dream, 
It learned elocution from eagles that scream ; 
Lo, the flash of its eye as it kindles the track 
With the wild at its front and the world at its 
back ! 

I beg you to think of the pioneer's stroke 
That the sleep of the wilderness lazily broke : 
The blow of that axe was the beat of the clock 
That timed the whole route from Plymouth's gray 

rock. 
Now you bend your ear down to the marvelous 

wire, 
That orbit man strung for articulate fire, — 
For globe and for lightning a nerve and a lyre, — 



166 WKE AND WATER. 

And you start at a grander chronometer's beat, 
As strong and distinct as a step in the street, 
Away there in the desert, away here in the mart, 
So near that you think it the beat of your heart, 
When the silver - bound laurel lay fast in its place, 
And they gave to the work its finishing grace, 
And you heard with your soul, when the hammer 

let fall, 
Drove the golden spike home for good and for all ! 
That couplet of iron — match the line if you can, 
The grandest of epics yet uttered by man- — 
Has heaved up the sky, reft the blue from the 

green ! 
See the western horizon sublimely careen 
To let in the East and its kingdoms between ! 



"ATLANTIC" 

A Y, build her long and narrow and deep ! 
**■ *- She shall cut the sea with a scimetar's sweep, 
Whatever betides and whoever may weep ! 

Bring out the red wine ! Lift the glass to the lip ! 

With a roar of great guns, and a " Hip ! hip ! 

" Hurrah ! "' for the craft, we will christen the ship ! 

Dash a draught on the bow ! Ah, the spar of 

white wood 
Drips into the sea till it colors the flood 
With the very own double and symbol of blood ! 



Now out with the name of the monarch gigantic 
That shall queen it so grandly when surges are 

frantic ! 
Child of fire and of iron, God save the Atlantic ! 

16T 



168 



" A TLANTlCr 



All freighted with power below and above, 
The heart of a fiend and the wing of a dove — 
Tumble in the brave cargo of life and of love ! 

Good for a thousand souls ! Hustle them in ! 
Your mother and mine shall the census begin ; 
Then tell off the children too little to sin ! 

With furnace of fire and forest of mast, 

She can conquer the calm and rally the blast ; 

But fuel is costlv ! Coal - heavers avast ! 



Ah, those ebony heaps that cumber the hold 
Can never be reckoned in silver and gold — 
Ten lives to the ton, and an anguish untold ! 

Alas for the lack of a handful of coals ; 
Alas for the ship that is haunted with souls ; 
Alas for the bell that eternally tolls ! 

All aboard, my fine fellows ! " Up anchor ! " the 

word — 
Ah, never again shall that order be heard, 
For two worlds will be mourning ye gone to a third ! 



" A TLANTIC" 169 

To the trumpet of March wild gallops the sea ; 
The white - crested troopers are under the lee — 
Old World and New World and Soul -World are 
three 

Great garments of rain wrap the desolate night ; 
Sweet Heaven disastered is lost to the sisrht : 
k4 Atlantic," crash on in the pride of thjr might ! 
With thy look-out's dim cry, " One o'clock, and 
all right ! " 

Ho, down with the hatches ! The seas come 

aboard ! 
All together they come, like a passionate word 
Like pirates that put every soul to the sword ! 

Their black flag all abroad makes murky the air, 
But the ship parts the night as a maiden her 

hair — 
Through and through the thick gloom, from land 

here to land there, 
Like the shuttle that weaves for a mourner to 

wear ! 



170 



"ATLANTIC" 



Good night, proud " Atlantic ! " One tick of 

the clock, 
And a staggering craunch and a shivering shock — 
'Tis the flint and the steel! 'Tis the ship and 

the rock ! 

Deathless sparks are struck out from the bosoms 
of girls, 

From the stout heart of manhood in scintillant 
whirls, 

Like the stars of the Flag when the banner un- 
furls ! 

What hundreds went up unto God in their sleep ! 
What hundreds in agony baffled the deep — ■ 
Nobody to pray and nobody to weep ! 



Alas for the flag of the single " White Star," 
With light pale and cold as the woman's hands are 
Who, froze in the shrouds, flashed her jewels 

afar, 
Lost her hold on the world, and then clutched at a 

spar ! 



"ATLANTIC" 171 

God of mercy and grace ! How the bubbles come 

up 
With souls from the revel, who stayed not to sup ; 
Deatli drank the last toast, and then shattered the 

cup ! 

Who crushed these poor hearts that wild terror 

environ ? — 
Atlantic of water ? Atlantic of iron ? 
The den where they bearded the granite old 

lion ? 
The God of the sparrows ? A breath from Mount 

Zion ? 



Bring the World into court ! Bid the verdict be 

given ! 
" To this true word we render, resistlessly driven, 
" And so say we all — Not Guilty, 'fore Heaven ! " 

Poor handful of carbon ! Call humanity's roll 
For the fellow who thought, " Ah, how costly is 

coal ! " 
He loses who bids any price for his soul ! 



172 



"ATLANTIC" 



And Christ died for this man — this pitiful crea- 
ture ! 
Made like the noblest in fashion and feature - — 
Saint John the Belov'd and the Wilderness 
Preacher ! 

Too sordid for soul and too subtle for sod, 
Let us lock out of heart the poor animate clod, 
And leave the new Cain and his brother with God ! 



In the clash of the leaves of the frantic woods, 
And the turbulent whirl of the angry floods, 
And the rumble and roar of the cloudy broods, 



In the height of the storm, you have sometimes 

heard 
The melodious voice of an unseen bird, 
And so clear and so brave that your heart was 

stirred ; 

It seemed to be Faith set anew to a song, 

That the weakest of things need never fear wrong 

If they only believe in the true and the strong. 



"ATLANTIC" 173 

In that bitterer storm, when the plunge of the 

wreck 
Tossed the white forms at will that were strewing 

the deck, 
As the foam -flakes are tossed on a war-horse's 

neck, 

And men growing grim in their hunger for life. 
And husband in frenzy abandoning wife 
To struggle alone in the desperate strife. 

Then a voice brave and young rose sweet through 

the din : 
" Lend a hand ! I 'm alone with a lifetime to win ! " 
'T was the song of an angel rebuking the sin. 

Then the brute that 's in men slunk back to its 

lair — 
Strong ringers were wound in the boy's curly 

hair — 
" Pass the lad right along ! My chance he shall 

share ! " 



THE CAVALRY CHARGE 



f T ARK ! the rattling roll of the musketeers, 
^ -■■ And the ruffled drums and the rallying 

cheers, 
And the rifles burn with a keen desire 
Like the crackling whips of a Hemlock fire, 
And the singing shot and the shrieking shell 
And the splintered fire of the shattered hell, 
And the great white breaths of the cannon smoke 
As the growling guns by batteries spoke ; 
And the ragged gaps in the walls of blue 
Where the iron surge rolled heavily through, 
That the Colonel builds with a breath again 
As he cleaves the din with his " Close up, men ! " 
And the groan torn out from the blacken'd lips, 
And the prayer doled slow with the crimson drips, 
And the beaming look in the dying eye 
As under the cloud the Stars go by, 

174 



THE CAVALRY CHARGE. \ 75 

" But his soul marched on," the Captain said, 
For the Boy in Blue can never be dead ! 



And the troopers sit in their saddles all 

Like statues carved in an ancient hall. 

And they watch the whirl from their breathless 

ranks, 
And their spurs are close to the horses' flanks, 
And the fingers work of the sabre hand — 
Oh, to bid them live, and to make them grand ! 
And the bugle sounds to the charge at last, 
And away they plunge and the front is passed ! 
And the jackets blue grow red as they ride, 
And the scabbards too, that clank by their side, 
And the dead soldiers deaden the strokes iron shod 
As they gallop right on o'er the plashy red sod — 
Right into the cloud all spectral and dim, 
Right up to the guns black -throated and grim, 
Right down on the hedges bordered with steel. 
Right through the dense columns, then w - light 

about wheel ! " 
Hurrah ! A new swath through the harvest again ! 
Hurrah for the Flag ! To the battle, Amen ! 



FOR T DEARBORN. 
The Old— October Wi, '71. The New— October St/i, '73. 

T30RN of the prairie and the wave — the blue 
*^ sea and the green, 

A city of the Occident, Chicago lay between ; 
Dim trails upon the meadow, faint wakes upon 

the main, 
On either sea a schooner and a canvas - covered 

wain. 



I saw a dot upon the map, and a house - fly's filmy 
wing — - 

They said 't was Dearborn's picket -flag when 
Wilderness was king ; 

I heard the reed -bird's morning song — the In- 
dian's awkward flail — 

The rice tattoo in his rude canoe like a dash of 
April hail — 

176 



FORT DEARBORN. 177 

The beaded grasses' rustling bend — the swash of 

the lazy tide, 
Where ships shake out the salted sails and navies 

grandly ride ! 

I heard the Block -house gates unbar, the column's 

solemn tread, 
I saw the Tree of a single leaf its splendid foliage 

shed 
To wave awhile that August morn above the 

column's head ; 
I heard the moan of muffled drum, the woman's 

wail of fife, 
The Dead March played for Dearborn's men just 

marching out of life, 
The swooping of the savage cloud that burst upon 

the rank 
And struck it with its thunderbolt in forehead and 

in flank, 
The spatter of the musket - shot, the rifles' whistling- 
rain — 
The sand - hills drift round hope forlorn that never 

marched ao-ain ! 



178 FORT DEARBORN. 

I see in tasseled rank and file the regiments of 

corn, 
Their bending sabres, millions strong, salute the 

summer morn ; 
The harvest -fields, as round and red as full-grown 

harvest -moon, 
That fill the broad horizons up with mimic gold of 

noon ; 
I count a thousand villages like flocks in pastures 

grand, 
I hear the roar of caravans through all the blessed 

land — 
Chicago grasps the ripened year and holds it in 

her hand ! 
" Give us this day our daily bread ! " the planet's 

Christian prayer ; 
Chicago, with her operi palm, makes answer 

everywhere ! 

I hear the march of multitudes who said the map 

was wrong — 
They drew the net of Longitude and brought it 

right along, 



FORT DEARBORN. 179 

And swung a great Meridian Line across the 

Foundling's breast, 
And the city of the Occident was neither East 

nor West ! 
Her charter is no dainty thing of parchment and 

of pen, 
But written on the prairie's page by full a million 

men ; 
They use the ploughshare and the spade, and end- 
less furrows run, 
Line after line the record grows, and yet is just 

begun ; 
They rive the pines of Michigan and give them to 

the breeze — 
The keel -drawn Charter's draft inscribes the 

necklace of the seas, 
'Tis rudely sketched in anthracite, engraved on 

copper plate, 
And traced across the Continent to Ophir's Golden 

Gate! 
The Lord's Recording Angel holds the Charter in 

his hand — 
He seals it on the sea, and he signs it on the land ! 



180 FORT DEARBORN. 

Unroll the royal Charter now ! It " marches " 

with the West, 
Embossed along its far frontier, Sierra's silver 

crest ; 
Along its hither border shines a sacred crystal 

chain : 
God cursed of old the weedy ground, but never 

cursed the main, 
As free to-day from earthly sin as Eden's early 

rain ! 

" I found a Rome of common clay," Imperial 
Csesar cried ; 

" I left a Rome of marble ! " No other Rome be- 
side ! 

The ages wrote their autographs along the sculp- 
tured stone — 

The golden eagles flew abroad — Augustan splen- 
dors shone — 

They made a Roman of the world ! They trailed 
the classic robe, 

And flung the Latin toga around the naked 
globe ! 



FORT DEARBORN, \s\ 

"I found Chicago wood and clay,"' a mightier 

Kaiser said. 
Then flung upon the sleeping mart his royal robes 

of red, 
And temple, dome, and colonnade, and monument 

and spire, 
Put on the crimson livery of dreadful Kaiser Fire ! 
The stately piles of polished stone were shattered 

into sand, 
And madly drove the dread simoon, and snowed 

them on the land ! 
And rained them till the sea was red, and scorched 

the wings of prayer ! 
Like thistle-down ten thousand homes went drift- 
ing through the air, 
And dumb Dismay walked hand in hand with 

frozen - eyed Despair ! 
Chicago vanished in a cloud — the towers were 

storms of sleet, 
Lo ! ruins of a thousand years along the spectral 

street ! 
The night burned out betw r een the days ! The 

ashen hoar - frost fell, 



182 FORT DEARBORN. 

As if some demon set ajar the bolted gates of hell, 
And let the molten billows break the adamantine 

bars, 
And roll the smoke of torment up to smother out 

the stars ! 
The low, dull growl of powder -blasts just dotted 

off the din, 
As if they tolled for perished clocks the time that 

might have been ! 
The thunder of the fiery surf roared human accents 

dumb ; 
The trumpet's clangor died away a wild bee's 

drowsy hum, 
And breakers beat the empty world that rumbled 

like a drum. 
O cities of the Silent Land ! O Graceland and 

Rosehill ! 
No tombs without their tenantry ? The pale host 

sleeping still ? 
iTour marble thresholds dawning red with holo- 

caustal glare, 
As if the Waking Angel's foot were set upon the 

stair ! 



FORT DEARBORN. \s:\ 

But ah, the human multitudes that marched before 
the flame, 

As 'mid the Red Sea's wavy walls the ancient 
people came ! 

Behind, the rattling chariots ! the Pharaoh of Fire ! 

The rallying volley of the whips — the jarring of 
the tire ! 

Looked round, and saw the homeless world as 
dismal as a pyre — 

Looked up, and saw God's blessed Blue a firma- 
ment so dire ! 

As in the days of burning Troy, when Virgil's 
hero fled, 

So gray and trembling pilgrims found some younger 
feet instead, 

That bore them through the wilderness with bold 
elastic stride, 

And Ruth and Rachel, pale and brave, in silence 
walked beside ; 

Those Bible girls of Judah's day did make that 
day sublime — 

Leave life but them, no other loss can ever bank- 
rupt Time ! 



184 



FORT DEARBORN. 



Men stood and saw their all caught up in chariots 

of flame — 
No mantle falling from the sky they ever thought 

to claim, 
And empty - handed as the dead, they turned away 

and smiled, 
And bore a stranger's household gods and saved a 

stranger's child ! 
What valor brightened into shape, like statues in 

a hall, 
When on their dusky panoply the blazing torches 

fall, 
Stood bravely out and saw the world spread wings 

of fiery flight, 
And not a trinket of a star to crown disastered 

night ! 



" Who runs these lines of telegraph ? yj A clock- 
tick made reply : 

" ' The greatest of the three ' has brought this 
message from the sky, 

" Cfje Uorti totll sen* an &ngel tioton to toorfc tjjese 
Imes to^ap!" 



FORT DEARBORN. 185 

Charge all the batteries good and strong ! Give 

God the right of way I 
And so the swift evangels ran by telegraphic time, 
And brought the cheer of Christendom from every 

earthly clime ; 
Celestial fire flashed round the globe, from Norway 

to Japan, 
Proclaimed the MANhood of the race, the brother- 

hood of man ! 
Then flashed a hundred engines' arms — then flew 

the lightning trains ; 
They had that day the right of way — gave every 

steed the reins — 
The minutes came, the minutes went — the miles 

fled just the same — 
And flung along October night their starry flags 

of flame ! 
They all were angels in disguise, from hamlet, 

field, and mart, 
Chicago's fire had warmed the World that had 

her woe by heart. 
" Who is my neighbor ? " One and all : " We see 

her signal light, 



186 



FORT DEARBORN. 



i4 And She our only neighbor now, this wild Octo- 



ber night ! " 



" I found Chicago wood and clay," the royal 

Kaiser cried, 
And flung upon the sleeping mart the mantle in 

his pride ; 
It lay awhile — he lifted it, and there beneath the 

robe 
A city done in lithograph, the wonder of the globe ; 
Where granite grain and marble heart, in strength 

and beauty wed, — 
" I leave a mart of palaces," the haughty Kaiser 

said. 



Now, thanks to God, this blessed day, to whom 

all thanks belong — 
The clash of silver cymbals, the rhyme of the little 

SOllff — 

o 

Whose Hand did hive the golden bees that swarm 

the azure dome, 
Whence honey -dews forever fall around this 

earthly home — 



FORT DEARBORX. 187 

Did constellate the prairie sod and light it up with 
flowers — 

That Hand defend from fire and flood this Prairie 
Flower of ours ! 

This volume of the royal West we bring in grate- 
ful gage, 

We open at the frontispiece and give it to the Age, 

Who wrote the word Chicago twice upon the 
title - page ! 



THE ISLE OF THE LONG AGO. 

/^\H, a wonderful stream is the River Time, 
^^ As it flows through the realm of Tears, 
With a faultless rhythm and a musical rhyme, 
And a broader sweep and a surge sublime 
As it blends with the ocean of Years. 



ii. 

How the winters are drifting like flakes of snow ! 

And the summers like buds between ; 
And the year in the sheaf — so they come and 

they go 
On the River's breast with its ebb and flow, 

As they glide in the shadow and sheen. 

in. 

There 's a magical Isle up the River Time 
Where the softest of airs are playing ; 
There 's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime, 
And a voice as sweet as a vesper chime, 

And the Junes with the roses are staying. 

188 



THE ISLE OF THE LONG AGO. 189 

IV. 

And the name of this Isle is the Long Ago, 

And Ave bury our treasures there ; 
There are brows of beauty and bosoms of snow — 
They are heaps of dust, but we loved them so ! 
There are trinkets and tresses of hair. 

v. 

There are fragments of song that nobody sings, 

And a part of an infant's prayer, 
There 's a harp unswept and a lute without strings. 
There are broken vows and pieces of rings, 

And the garments that she used to wear. 

VI. 

There are hands that are waved when the fairy 
shore 

By the mirage is lifted in air ; 
And we sometimes hear through the turbulent 

roar 
Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before. 

When the wind down the River is fair. 



190 THE ISLE OF THE LONG AGO. 

VII. 

Oh, remembered for aye be the blessed Isle 

All the day of our life till night, 
And when evening comes with its beautiful smile, 
And our eyes are closing in slumber awhile, 

May that " Greenwood" of soul be in sight. 



THE ROSE AND THE ROBIN. 

"T^HE yellow rose leaves falling down 
A Pay golden toll to passing June, 
The robin's breast of golden brown 
Is trembling with an ancient tune. 

The rose will bloom another year, 
The robin and his wife will come, 

But he who sees may not be here, 
And he who sings be dumb. 

Thy grace be mine, oh yellow rose ! 

My heart like thine its blossoms shed, 
Grow fragrant to the fragrant close, 

And sweetest when I 'm dead. 

And so like thee I '11 pay my way 
In coin that time can never rust, 

And footsteps sound another day 
Though feet have turned to dust ! 
101 



192 THE ROSE AND THE ROBIN. 

Thy gift be mine, oh singing bird ! 

My song like thine round home and heart 
To Song, God never said the word 

" To dust return, for dust thou art ! " 



NOTE S. 



Tornado Sunday. — The memorable tornado that swept over 
Iowa, destroying the village of Camanche and leaving across the 
State a broad track of death and desolation. A meeting for the 
relief of the sufferers was held in Chicago, and the poem was 
written for the occasion. 

The Hero of New Hamburg. — On the night of February 
6th, 1S71, an oil train was wrecked on the track near the bridge 
at New Hamburg, on the Hudson River Railroad. The Express 
train bound West ran into the wreck, the bridge took fire and fell, 
and twenty - one persons in the Buffalo sleeping car were killed. 
The Engineer, E. H. Simmons, remained upon his engine, doing 
what he could to avert the threatened disaster, and failing in this, 
looked death in the face, chose it to desertion, and perished at his 
post. 

Going Home. — A poor disheartened emigrant returning to his 
Eastern home from the far West, met in the streets of La Porte, 
Indiana, a hearse on its way to the City of the Silent. He turned 
aside, halted, and, with his wife and children, watched the sad 
procession. The poor fellow had told his story to some one never 
suspected of a spark of poetry, who, as he watched the meeting 
from the sidewalk, said, " Well, one is going East and the other 
going West, but they 'rebound the same way after all — both going 
home ! " 

The Vane on the Spire. — During the bitter and death-dealing 
days of the winter and spring of 1872 1 often watched the gilded 

193 



194 NOTES. 

arrow that swings upon the spire of the Methodist Church. And 
it always had a meaning for me — sometimes sad, a few times glad, 
and always true. Day after day, week after week, that arrow 
pointed North — pointed East : always North, always East — like 
the finger of Fate. " The chill winds blew ; the cold storms came ; 
there were beds of languishing ; there were new-made graves. 
Frost, sorrow, and death ruled the air in company. And all the 
while, the arrow told the story, 

At last there came some genial days, when flowers blossomed, 
birds sang, the weak grew strong, and the graves were green. 

The arrow on the spire had swung round to the South ; it told 
the story still. It was no longer the finger of Fate, but a thing of 
beauty — a piece of aerial jewelry. It had eloquence enough to 
inspire a little song, had there been anybody to write it. 

Fire and Water. — All being ready to connect the two grand 
divisions of the Union Pacific Railroad, delegations from the 
Atlantic and Pacific coasts met, and the last spike was driven with 
simple but impressive ceremonies. The tie was silver-bound 
laurel and the spike of Californian gold. The wires of the tele- 
graph were so connected that the fall of the hammer was echoed 
at nearly the same instant in offices thousands of miles away. 

" Atlantic." — The steamship " Atlantic," struck a rock on the 
morning of April 1st, 1873, and was wrecked, with a fearful sacri- 
fice of human life. The ship was out of her course, and if any 
reason existed for the fatal variation it was the fear that the supply 
of coal was insufficient to take it into its destined port. The inci- 
dent of the saving of the lad, John Hanly, awakened universal 
interest and sympathy. 



/ L 



